Shownotes
Doris, who lives between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe, California, was adopted after her adoptive mother's repetitive attempts at pregnancy. Doris then had to endure herself centeredness -- a residual trauma of her failed pregnancies -- and her narcissism, which prevented her from being the mother Doris needed. I
n reunion, Doris was welcomed by some of her extended family, but chose to try to meet her birth mother face to face, to hopefully avoid being rejected.
You will be stunned by the outcome of Doris's trip to her birth mother's home and empowered by how she focuses on the positivity of her experience. This is Doris his journey.
Who Am I Really?
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Transcripts
COLD CUT INTRO
[:It probably really would have broken me.
[:
You will be stunned by the outcome of Doris's trip to her birth mother's home and empowered by how she focuses on the positivity of her experience. This is Doris his journey.
Opening
[:
Doris's birth mother. Doris was brought home at three days old. She said her birth month. She said her birth announcement bread. She said her birth announcement read. I wasn't expected. I was selected. Dora said those words framed her early adoptive experiences. As many people said she was lucky to be adopted because her birth parents chose her.
ctation of being beholden to [:[00:03:22] Damon: My dad,
[:And I guess it just never occurred to anybody that maybe she shouldn't have been allowed to adopt a child. Yeah. That perhaps. It wasn't the very best thing that could have happened to me. I mean, as an adult, I'm fine. I have a wonderful son. [00:04:00] I have a great marriage. I have really good friend relationships, but it took me many, many, many years to get to the point where.
I didn't feel like I needed to be a people pleaser.
[:[00:04:25] Doris: Yes.
She had nine miscarriages and two stillbirths.
[:[00:04:36] Doris: I don't. like I said, she was an only child. I don't think my grandma had really any problems with her pregnancy that I know of, but my grandparents died when I was fairly young.
carriages? How come you only [:And I also think that in some ways, I was a living reminder of her inability to reproduce. And I think that I, I didn't look anything like her. My mom was a very petite blonde haired blue eyed Scandinavian girl. And I had like flaming red bozo hair as a child. It was super curly. It was unruly. I was [00:06:00] pasty as all heck and I just didn't look like anything.
anyone in my family.
[:[00:06:07] Doris: And as I got older, I started to resemble my dad, I think somewhat. And I think that's because my True heritage is Germanic, Norwegian,
my dad being from Finland probably carried some of those same genetics.
So I kind of blended more with his family. Although most of them are in the old country than I did, but my mom's family tallest person in the whole family, men included, there were like two men taller than me, everybody was under five, seven. I was, I say that I'm the designated family reacher because on holidays, I was the only one that could reach that the serving bowls on the top shelf in the kitchen.
[:And I would imagine it probably was fairly re traumatizing for her after nine miscarriages and two stillbirths. That's 11 kids for you to be the adoptee in front of her. I can't imagine that there was any way for her to ever get over that.
[:[00:07:42] Damon: heard by that.
[:And when I didn't turn out that way, it was just an extra reminder that I wasn't really hers. And I do think had there not been so much pressure on having children at that time, I don't think she would have adopted me. But I kind of jokingly say I was the Louis Vuitton bag of 1961. Everybody had one and she needed one too, even though she did not have motherly instincts or she just really wasn't cut out to be a mom. And I'm not saying that to be mean. I [00:09:00] had a very you know, my childhood wasn't horrible. She didn't physically beat me. You know, it wasn't the most supportive of childhoods. I think she did do her best. It was just that her best probably wasn't nurturing enough for most little people.
[:she was diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, I think as a performer.
[:So, that all worked great. And in our house, she was the star. And I think that's the other thing that was hard for her was she had a baby. And when, when you get a child, when you bring a child home, everybody wants to see the child. Nobody's interested in seeing you for a while. They want to hold the baby and play with the baby.
here were many reminders of. [:[00:11:04] Damon: Oh, she said those kinds of things.
[:[00:11:07] Damon: Wow. But you're, I mean, you're right. As you named the disorder, she lived with, what was it? Narcissistic personality disorder. I mean, inherently the name of the disorder indicates. It's an individual who requires being at the center of attention. And as you've talked about, there's nothing better than a baby to steal attention from everybody.
[:[00:11:54] Damon: Hmm.
[:I'm dying from nothing that I've been diagnosed with, but I can't do anything anymore.
[:And is that roughly correct?
[:My, my natural birth mother's background, she would insist she knew nothing about her.
And if I asked, she wanted to know what she had done wrong, that I would turn on her like this. And why would I possibly want to know about that person? Because she was my mom and wasn't I happy? And didn't I realize that? again, she could have picked somebody else and It was sad because I don't blame her for how she was because she couldn't help it.
ime, had she been willing to [:[:
Then this is your adoptive father. He, I gather from you has. picked up on the fact that the wife he has chosen for life suffers with mental illness. Now the two of them have adopted a child and it's probably it sounds like very clear to him that she's not necessarily your number one fan. So how was your relationship with him?
[:They did not have electricity. They did not have running water. They didn't have a radio. I mean, they, they basically. We're camping in a house. he left Finland in 1948. He'd never been on a plane. He had never seen anybody who wasn't white.
[:[00:15:38] Doris: he knew that there were people of different colors in the world.
wasn't going to be the same [:And his stepmother subsequently had two more kids with my grandpa. And those were her children. And my dad was kind of really cast aside.
I think my father knew that my mom wasn't the best mom, but he had no real model to go by. And you know, he worked really hard. well, I am not going to say he worked a long day.
He lived a long day. He would usually be out of the house by 5 a. m. and he wouldn't be back till five 30 or six every night. And then he'd go to bed at eight. religiously, I think primarily to not spend too much time with my mom And then every summer he would go to Alaska for three months to fish for bumblebee seafoods and do salmon fishing up there.
And so I think, [:I mean, your kid, you had a lot of kids because you needed the work out of them on your farms. And if you didn't work, you didn't eat. So
[:[00:17:35] Doris: I'm living in this house with color TV and you know, everything's nice. So I think in his head. That's met my needs.
[:He was like, she's fine. I grew up, you know, you know, struggling over there with multiple kids. No running water or plumbing or anything. And here we are with color [00:18:00] TVs. But you know, what's also interesting about what you said about his upbringing is that it's kind of the opposite of what happens to some adoptees from international countries where, these children, let's say from an African village, right?
I've heard stories. There was a woman on the podcast a while ago, Tessita, and she said that when she was growing up, she had never seen a white person before.
[:[00:18:24] Damon: And so here she is leaving her small village, being put on a plane that she's never been on before, never meeting white people before. And now she is adopted into a white family in California.
That's a parallel experience to what your adoptive father had never having seen anyone of color and then being confronted by somebody who was in an environment when he first lands in this country. I mean, it's just astonishing that that's the experience of folks.
[:That are woven into your day to day life.
but I knew deep down that that wasn't my heritage.
[:And I see [00:20:00] that with some of my friends that I've met where, especially because they're usually a little older when they were adopted, but they were raised with one set.
[:With their new life.
[:[00:20:38] Doris: do think that that has changed.
other culture because we're [:[00:21:06] Damon: Right. Because the people who live in their cultures think that their culture is the best, right? We're very ethnocentric and xenophobic. And it's, it can be incredibly challenging to overcome some of those things. And the, the kind of comical thing about America is it's made up of cultures all over the world.
So we have no heritage. We literally
[:Doris told me when she was a teen, she started being tempted by television shows like Phil Donahue and Oprah, which were occasionally broadcasting scenarios of adoption reunion. Doris all stories of people who had found their birth mother or others of siblings who were working right next to each other at the same company, then realized they were torn apart at birth.
[:She didn't want to ask her adoptive relatives either for fear, they would rat her out to her adoptive mother. So Doris decided to keep her mouth shut about her curiosity for adoption reunion. Like other adoptees of the time around 1988, Doris had read an article about a group called Alma, the adoptee Liberty movement association. Doris wrote into the address at the end of the article. I shared her information then went online to enter her info into their database, to be matched. [00:23:00] If any connection was uncovered. Years later, Doris got her first computer at home, which opened the door for her to explore more adoption reunion websites.
age of time. Around the year,:Father's name.
[:because like I said, it was not a common last name. And so I found him. Or who, you know, at least who I kind of thought I was, he was, and I found the names of his two daughters, my sisters.
And I looked at my sister Kim on Facebook and boy, if she didn't look a lot like me. Actually, even there was one picture of her wearing a t shirt and a coat that I also owned that we both bought at old Navy.
[:[00:25:00] Doris: And I'm looking and I'm like, this has to be, and I remember showing it to my husband and my son and going, then she looked like she could be my sister.
And they're like, Oh, heck yeah, definitely. So I was finally able to contact them and my birth mother's maiden name was Delwo, which is a name I had never heard in my whole life, but is amazingly common in Minnesota.
[:[00:25:28] Doris: Tons of them. And for a while, I thought my birth mom was this one lady because she'd been best friends with my birth dad's sister and she was a Delwo and they lived across the street from each other.
he looked at me. She goes, I [:[00:26:28] Damon: And so
[:I found my actual birth mother and her pictures when she was in high school, she could be my twin.
[:
Two half sisters a whole bunch of ants. My dad came from a family of my birth dad, I think of seven, eight, nine, like a big family, lots of kids. And it's funny because my son looks a lot like one of my aunts. If my son had a wig on, it's the funniest thing. My aunt, my aunt looked like my son in drag is exactly how it was.
out to Minnesota in June. of:And I asked Diane, you know, did you guys know she was pregnant? And she said, Oh yeah, we all knew. my birth mom and my dad weren't pregnant. a really super devoted couple, but they ran around in a gang of like maybe five or six couples. And I think that they were the odd ones.
They weren't paired off. So they ended up just kind of going together because they were the last couple. So,
[:[00:28:33] Doris: know, the, the little bit of paperwork I was able to get from the state said that she had discussed with my dad My birth dad that you know, he knew she was pregnant. She didn't want to keep the child.
ved to San Francisco. It was [:And I know my sister's, my, my birth dad died of pancreatic cancer and he knew he was dying. And I think there was, A lot of shock and some resentment or sadness amongst my sisters that their dad hadn't shared with them that they had another sibling somewhere in the world. And I know it, It hurt my one sister probably a lot more than the other because she and her dad were very close.
ause if you have any kind of [:these women were shamed. I mean, it was an embarrassment to have to leave your community and go live in hiding at an unwed mother's home or an aunt's home. And, you know, my, my birth mom walked in her graduation. And she was four months pregnant and then immediately flew to San Francisco and then came back the following, I think she came back the January after I was born, you know, without a baby.
[:But I would have loved to have met him at least once. And unfortunately I didn't get the chance to do that.
[:
Unlike the experience with her birth father. Doris had connected with [00:32:00] another maternal relative Who was able to help Doris track down her birth mother in Prescott, Arizona. The city of Prescott had very open records at the time.
And Doris was able to simply ask the city about where her birth mother lived. Based on the information her family had provided. Dora said, made up her mind that she did not want her birth mother to reject her outreach over the phone or through a letter. So she made the decision. She was going to drive to Prescott To knock on the door of the home.
Her birth mother was renting. I asked Doris about the drive out to try to find this woman who probably didn't want to meet her. She said that while her son and husband made the trip fun. Doris oscillated between feelings of.
Oh, I'm so excited to. Oh my gosh, what am I doing? We should go home. And my husband would be like, no, we came this far. We got to go find her. You got to do this. And I was like, Oh, I don't know.
[:You know, obviously it was the wrong house. And then we went to her house, we found it, and I was so excited and I went up to the door and I was literally shaking. And I had told my husband and son. Wait in the car because I don't want her to see this big group of people and maybe be intimidated or wonder why we're there.
ld see right into the family [:So I'm knocking on the door and I'm nosy. I'm looking inside. Oh, this is nice. This is pretty. And I remember noticing really distinctly things. There was a cup of coffee on the kitchen counter. There was a novel turned upside down, but open like you do when you're reading a book and you put it down.
was a pack of cigarettes on the counter, which I was surprised at because I was a long time, very heavy smoker But I was like, Oh gosh, she smokes. That's so weird because nobody in my family smoked ever. And yet I've often said that I felt like I came out of the womb.
Wanting a cigarette.
[:[00:34:44] Doris: pretty sure she probably smoked through her whole pregnancy. Because in the early 60s, you weren't told to quit. And so I'm looking at all these things and I'm like, wow, this is fascinating. Pounding on the door.
about two in the afternoon. [:And I do believe I had written to her son on Facebook Messenger. I think I might be related to your mom. I think I left it really general if I remember correctly at first, because I wasn't sure she was my birth mom.
r somebody in the family and [:And it was his phrasing was very interesting. And I remember thinking. Has he actually asked his mother, our mother, or is he answering just on behalf of what he thinks she wants? so when we got back to the hotel the day that we had knocked on her door, I had a Facebook message from him out of the blue saying, it's my understanding that you're in Prescott with the plan of meeting with my mother.
I said, I own that picture. [:So no, you can't tell me what to do because that's mine. And. I would like to hear from your mother. If she does not want to see me, I want to hear her say it and I won't push it, but I'm not harassing anybody. And if you want to call the sheriff, go ahead because I haven't done anything wrong. so we were walking to dinner and we were leaving Prescott the next day.
So I said to my husband, you know, I think I should try to call her because We're leaving and maybe she's got a busy schedule. You know, I don't want to just keep going and knocking and missing her. Called and left a message. She didn't answer. We go to dinner. We leave dinner. We're walking back to our hotel and I get a call from her number.
it, answer it. And I'm like, [:And first I thought that he was lying. I thought it was maybe somebody my brother got to pretend to be a sheriff's deputy to dissuade me from making contact.
[:[00:38:20] Doris: he was like, I said, you are not a sheriff. I remember saying to this man, you are not a sheriff. My brother put you up to this, didn't he? And he's like, I don't know what you're talking about.
nds for lunch and she didn't [:And so her friends called for a welfare check and the sheriffs went out there and found her pretty much within a couple of hours. After I had been knocking on her door. And so they asked me some questions and I said, well, she has a son. This is his name. This is the state he lives in, and this is where he works.
I don't know anything else about him. I don't have his address or his phone number, but I'm sure he's in her phone. And this is her half sister and her half sister's number. And she may know how to contact him. I don't. And so he said, thank you. I kind of explained why I was there and what I was doing and everything.
You
[:[00:39:55] Doris: Yes.
[:[00:39:57] Doris: Well, yeah, because he wanted to know why she had my number. [00:40:00] And I said, well, she doesn't really know me, but I have been searching for my birth mother and it turns out it's her. And I was there earlier today to meet her for the first time, hopefully.
And meanwhile, I mean, I'm borderline hysterical. I have so much stuff going through my head. And I remember at one point, because I do tend to have kind of a sarcastic sense of humor, especially when things go wrong. I remember saying to the poor deputy, you know, if she didn't want to meet me, all she had to say, all she had to do was say, so she didn't have to die.
[:[00:40:39] Doris: fine. You know, I would have understood. Oh my
[:[00:40:48] Doris: so we, we sat down on a bench and Prescott is An old, old, old town, and it's built around a town square, and we had started at the [00:41:00] diagonal on one side, and our hotel was the diagonal on the other side, so we were sitting there.
I'm trying to, like, gather myself just to get the strength to have my legs hold me up to get back to the hotel, because obviously, this is not the ending that anybody anticipated, And we finally get up and we're walking back and my phone rings again. And this time it's actually from the deputy, you know, on his phone.
And he said, can I ask where you are? And I said, or walking back to the Hacienda, which was our hotel. And he said I need you to go there and stay there until I get there. And I said, okay. And I said, you realize I've never met her. I can't like. really probably technically identify her because I've, I've only seen pictures and I'm not a thousand percent sure she's my birth mom.
no your brother actually has [:[00:42:04] Damon: grief, man. I
[:And certainly he, I don't think that he did it out of spite. I think he was like, wait, this lady went to my mom's house and now she's saying she didn't get to meet her, but my mom is inside dead.
[:[00:42:41] Doris: so we went back to the hotel now by now it's like 10 o'clock at night. I'm starting to really fall apart.
And so I sat there drinking going
[:[00:42:52] Doris: was so heartbroken ken and disappointed and just. [00:43:00] So angry with myself that I hadn't gone a day, a week, a month, a year, whatever before why didn't we come six months ago? why didn't I do all the things?
And since then I've come to the conclusion that it ended the way it did. So that I wouldn't have to hear her reject me. that's how I've written the story in my head. I have, we'll never know if that's true or not, but I think if I had to stand there and have her look at me and say, go away, I don't want to have anything to do with you.
round in my head. And I kept [:You've known her your whole life, and I'm basically mourning a dream, and you're mourning your whole reality, and I'm so sorry, and he replied and said, Can you send me your address? I have something for you. And then after that he went right back to, I don't want to know you. I don't want to see you. Don't come here.
just says, don't bother me, [:[00:45:01] Damon: Yeah.
[:[00:45:10] Damon: but
[:I know I wouldn't probably be the compassionate empathetic person that I am had I not been raised by a mentally ill woman who was heavily addicted to prescription drugs that her doctors had fed her her whole entire life. I have huge compassion for people who are addicted. I volunteer heavily at our local federally qualified health center and Also, I'm very active in donating to it's called the upper room and it's where they serve free meals in our community.
[:psychological issues that we have to deal with, it has really, made me have just an enormous amount of compassion for people who I encounter who do seem to have heavy addiction issues. Because the first thing, I always say to myself is, gosh, what must have happened to them to get them to this place?
horrible disappointments and [:I won't ever know why I didn't get to meet my birth dad. All I can do. Is be happy with the gains I do have. I have two lovely, wonderful sisters. I have an aunt who is just so kind to me and loves me absolutely with no limits, you know, and these are people who have very graciously allowed me into their lives, even though I'm basically a stranger.
w I'm really not and. What I [:[00:48:21] Doris: I don't really feel like I belong in and it's, it's not for lack of them being nice to me or being kind to me. Thank you. Or trying very hard, having a, you know, a welcoming get together. So I could meet my aunts and my uncles. They've been beyond gracious and, and lovely, but I have no shared past with them.
t serve to hopefully forge a [:[00:49:05] Damon: Triumphs and challenges. I couldn't
[:[00:49:14] Damon: Trauma bonding. That's one of the things that happens with people, right? Yeah.
[:And the only thing I walk away from it is the goodness far outweighs the sadness.
[:[00:49:42] Doris: I came out not as ahead as I hoped, but I had anyways.
[:[00:50:11] Doris: have been worse.
Really? It would have been worse because as adoptees, at least back in the day, we weren't told, Oh, your birth mom was a single mom and basically was forced by, society's rules to give you away. I was told she didn't want me, And now knowing that she has a son that she loved very dearly that she In schools and preschools, pretty much her whole life.
you actually had sex without [:She probably didn't want me.
[:[:
All you're left with is this speculation as to whether she would or would not have wanted you, whether or not she would have accepted or rejected you when you returned in an adoption [00:52:00] reunion. It's really challenging to even
guess at it. It's crazy.
Tell me about you, something else that was, stood out to me was you said that you sounded like had a long grieving process. This is days, weeks, months.
It sounded like for you, tell me what that period was like and how you got to what I'll loosely call the other side. well,
[:That's maybe a little gentler and not as sad um,
[:[00:52:48] Doris: Yeah. And one of the things that I think, because I have a genetic blood clotting disorder. I think I probably got it from my [00:53:00] birth mom, my son has it as well, and she was a heavy smoker, and she evidently what they think is had a stroke, and I'm guessing she probably had a blood clot.
And it's one of the things I've made sure to let my brother know because he has a daughter and this genetic disorder is harder on women than it is on men because women tend to take hormones, which also impact our clotting ability. so I have made sure he understands that he ought to have his daughter tested, whether he does or not.
but I think first of all, in a lot of ways, I'm kind of a fatalist. I almost always expect the worst.
[:So,
ably reject me. And in a way [:it had gone on for so long, this search I think more of what I mourned was the fact that all the little fairy tale Endings I had imagined literally my whole life weren't going to come true.
And then the other thing that I think I mourned was my adopted mother's. inability to at least look at me once and say, you know what, I really am glad you were part of my life.
[:[:
So she was a single mother. In a cruel irony. Single motherhood was what doors his birth mother was trying to avoid by placing her for adoption. But her husband's death put her in the same place. Yep. Being widowed is a way that society can accept a woman as a single mother, But not one single motherhood Is the result of premarital sex. Doris told me she [00:56:00] and her mother had a lot in common, Including their job history as house cleaners, the obscure brand of cigarettes Doris used to smoke before she quit How much they look like one another And how devoted they have both been to their sons.
Doris has even been told. She sounds just like her birth mother when she talks and they share mannerisms to. Our biological parents are undeniably genetically imprinted on us in myriad ways. Dora said there was no way she could have searched for her birth parents Before her adoptive mother's passing as the woman would have made things very bad for Doris.
[:She would have made my life miserable. I was her only child. So caring for her was, I mean, I always knew that was going to be my job and it was a difficult job and there's no way in heck I was going to make it even more difficult by saying, Oh, [00:57:00] well I'm going to Arizona now to meet this woman.
So
[:that's when I started really looking and my mom passed. That was a
[:[00:57:21] Doris: I was 52
[:[00:57:24] Doris: But yeah, there was no way I couldn't. gosh, honestly, even the idea of even bringing up the subject to this day makes me like sweat, nervous sweat, because her reactions were so strong and So negative and she's, she was always very good at making people feel bad and I, I wasn't about to put myself and my family through that.
There's no way
so it would have made all of [:[00:58:03] Damon: yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. That's one of the challenges that Many adoptees faces that the adoptive family is a barrier to initiating a search. They've been told point blank.
We don't want you to do it. It'll feel like a betrayal. You should have forgotten about those people. Look at all that I've done for you. You know, there's all kinds of gaslighting sort of guilt tripping scenarios out there that prevent adoptees from feeling like they can or want to search. And just, you've said that she's been deceased for a while, but just the sitting here thinking about it now, even though she's well gone, you still get the physical reaction of what it would have been like to bring it up.
did it after she had passed [:[00:59:01] Doris: And she even said like, when I had mentioned it many years ago, saying, well, do you know where she is?
Do you know anything about her? my adoptive mom was like, no, I don't. And we were promised. That you would never know. So just stop asking.
[:[00:59:17] Doris: Yeah. that's where I have the hardest problem is knowing that my birth mom was promised that this was a sealed deal and there was no way I was ever going to find her then trying to find her
d to do, but I had waited so [:it's hard. When you make a choice of my feelings are more important than your feelings.
[:[01:00:12] Doris: That's
[:That's, it's totally unfair.
[:And then that just starts, everything starts rolling around in your brain. And I really want to know, but I don't want to screw up their life. And what if. You know, what if this unleashes some massive falling rock of information that just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger? And it's interesting because 1 of the good things finding everybody did.
Was a fellow on 23 and me reached out to me and it turns out on my mom, my birth mom's side of the family, one of my great aunts gave him up for adoption and he'd always wanted a brother and his. Brother who was raised as an only child with this aunt always wanted a brother and they found each other because I was registered on 23 and me.
[:[01:01:56] Doris: was super cool. And they had a big family reunion and they invited [01:02:00] me and I went back to Minnesota and met him and they both have said how grateful they were that I went ahead and did the 23 and me and made myself approachable so that they were able to find each other because they have a fabulous relationship.
So that makes it, even though I didn't get the tidy little dream answer that I wanted, I'm so happy for them and that they got what they wanted and that they get along and they enjoy each other. And cause that's the other thing. What if you find these people and they're horrible?
[:Yeah. Or
[:[01:02:53] Damon: that's, that's an interesting challenge. A lot of adoptees are like, damn, I wish I didn't know this now. You know what I mean?
Yeah. It's, yeah, it's kind of, I could have been living
[:[01:03:10] Damon: But you also get the opportunity to take better care of yourself than they did if they were living in that ignorance.
So it is, it's a, it's a sort of six, one half dozen of the, yeah.
[:[01:03:43] Damon: Yeah, that's exactly right. Wow. Doris, this has been unbelievable. I'm so sorry for how it turned out. I just, I cannot imagine that it would be, I think it would crush so many people, but knowing that you were [01:04:00] going in with the possibility of rejection. Probably stealed you for some pretty traumatic experience, whatever it was going to be, and unfortunately it was her demise and I just I can't even imagine what it would be like to know that you had been standing outside and she was probably in there and she
[:[01:04:22] Damon: had been if you had been just a little bit earlier, this would have changed things.
So I'm sorry for that, but I appreciate you being here with me. This is us. This was a really, really fascinating. I gotta say, and what I loved is what you started with. You said basically what you expressed to me was this has been a net positive. And I think that that is super important
[:My reason for this is, I've been able to share my life with people like you that I never would have met probably otherwise. I got to share my story in a documentary. I got to meet other people who participated in that documentary that I never would have met. So, I mean, there's just so many other.
wonderful things that have sprung out of the fact I couldn't find my birth mom.
[:[01:05:53] Doris: Damon. I really enjoyed
[:This [01:06:00] was really cool. And something in what you've said is going to help somebody else. So thank you.
[:[01:06:06] Damon: Take care. I'll talk to you another day.
[:[01:06:08] Damon: Bye bye.
[:Hey, it's me. Doors grew up feeling out of place in her adoptive family and was reminded that she was adopted As she was under appreciated for who she is by her adoptive mother. Doris chose to try to meet her birth mother face to face, to prevent the woman from rejecting her via the protection of corresponding through remote means. But Doris lived the experience of what so many adopted people fear that when she found her birth mother, it would be too late. Uh, Doris is the most stark example I have ever heard of that fear becoming reality as she knocked on the woman's door, only hours after she had died. Dora said she has overcome some of the wounds from her tragic loss with the passage of time.
[:When Doris is asked about When to search. She always urges people that if they truly feel the need to meet their birth, parents do not put it off because you don't know what can happen tomorrow. However, if you choose to wait and unfortunately the person you're looking for leaves us prior to reunion. Try not to beat yourself up because Hopefully you made the decision not to search.
That was right for you and your family, as it was for Doris to avoid the drama of her adoptive mother's anger and tears.
is called reckoning with the [:It is a moving account of adoptee experiences, including that of the film's director and featured adoptee, autumn Sansom. You can find more information about the movie@reckoningwiththeprimalwound.com. I'm Damon Davis. And to hope you found something endorsers journey that inspired you. Validate your feelings about wanting to search or motivates you to have the strength along your journey to learn. Who am I really.
That was great. Well done.
[:[01:08:34] Damon: All that, isn't it? I know
[:[01:08:40] Damon: Well, good for you.
[:[01:08:43] Damon: it takes a while. There's times when I can do it and I don't cry and there's times when I, I don't even tell the full story and I get teary. It's crazy how it takes over you.
ife expecting that everybody [:[01:09:03] Damon: You know, I don't, but I have heard that from a gang of guests it's not everybody though.
There's definitely a lot of folks who have said that they ultimately realized that they sabotage relationships because that's what's in the back of their mind, that they expect that people are going to ditch them. So let me get out of here first. Let me push them away before they have a chance to reject me.
I've heard that multiple times.
[:And I said, well, I can't speak for everybody else, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. I said, my husband loves me dearly. We've been married, together almost 40 years. If he turned around tomorrow and said, I'm done. I'm out. I'd be shattered, but I wouldn't be surprised [01:10:00] and every woman on that stage with me said, Oh my God, this exactly this.
when my friends, my close friends, when I mentioned it and I'm like, I know you're never going to ditch out on me, but if you don't return my call or if you don't return my text. Within an hour, I'm sitting here stewing over. Is she mad at me?
[:[01:10:25] Doris: Oh my gosh. It it's gotta be the worst part of it for me.
[:[01:10:34] Doris: It is crazy. Cause I mean, on the flip side of it, I'm a great friend. So why, why would they do that? But it's still there, you know,
