Adoptee Monica Hall discusses her journey from leaving corporate America to starting her own soap company and finding her indigenous roots. She shares anecdotes about selling peppermint soap to a gay community and the success of her products. Monica also opens up about her personal life, including her experiences with relationships and her challenging childhood.

She talks about her spiritual practices and the importance of maintaining a high vibration. The conversation touches on the power of storytelling and the healing process, as well as the impact of adoption on individuals and families. Monica discusses her experiences with family dynamics, including distancing herself from toxic family members and the realization that she had been enabling their behavior. She reflects on her upbringing and the impact it had on her relationships and self-worth.

Monica also talks about the process of writing her memoir and the challenges she faced in condensing her story. She shares her journey of reconnecting with her biological daughter and the complexities of being an indigenous person. Overall, Monica's story is one of resilience, healing, and the search for identity and belonging.

High Vibrations with the Author of Practically Still a Virgin

Benefits of Listening to This Episode:

1. Inspiration for Entrepreneurial Ventures: Learn how Monica turned her passion for natural products and herbology into a thriving business, providing practical inspiration for listeners looking to start their own entrepreneurial journeys.
2. Insights into Personal Growth Through Heritage: Gain insights into how connecting with one's cultural and familial roots can lead to significant personal growth and self-discovery.
3. Understanding the Impact of Adoption on Identity: Monica discusses her experiences with adoption from both personal and professional perspectives, offering listeners deeper understanding of how early life experiences can shape personal identity and relationships.

Guest bio:

Monica Hall is a speaker, writer, coach, and entrepreneur. In addition to working as a business consultant, Monica has founded several companies, including an eponymous skincare line and a successful business centered on natural, chemical-free body care, and has worked in advertising and marketing for more than twenty years.

Her entrepreneurial spirit is fueled by the often traumatic experiences of her youth, which helped to cultivate the fierce and fearless personality that prepared her to build and direct successful industry-leading companies. Monica loves sharing her story and giving hope to those in crisis, which she has done for over three decades. She devotes much of her time to working with women by guiding them through life’s challenges. This has been instrumental in her development, and Monica describes it as a life-changing experience.

Freely giving her time has helped her to shed a self-centered worldview and gain new insight into human motivation and interactions.

Connect with Monica:

https://www.instagram.com/monicahallauthor/

About Practically Still a Virgin

A gripping memoir recounting a fifteen-year-old adoptee's experience of rape and the pregnancy that changed her life.

Adopted and raised during Alaska’s lawless 1970s oil-boom era, Monica grows up amid trauma and dysfunction. As a teen, she rebels into delinquency.

When Monica is raped and becomes pregnant, her religious parents push her into giving up her baby, her only known blood relative for adoption. These events kick off a decades-long search for family and belonging.

Thread by thread, she weaves together the truth of her identity, pulled by yearning for her daughter and the mother who gave her away.

Discover how reconnecting with your roots can lead to unexpected personal and business success—listen to Monica Hall's transformative story today on Family Twist.

Chapters

00:00 Leaving Corporate America and Discovering Indigenous Roots

00:58 Selling Peppermint Soap to the Gay Community

06:28 Maintaining a High Vibration: Monica's SpiritualPractices

29:29 Navigating Toxic Family Dynamics

32:22 The Challenges of Writing a Memoir

34:15 Reconnecting with Biological Family

37:06 Embracing Indigenous Identity

41:23 Resilience and Healing

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I left corporate America in the mid 90s and I got pregnant after I got married, which was like an anomaly for me. So anyway, I actually got married, had a baby and quit my corporate America job. And then I got ahold of an article and I started studying herbology and just got really into my indigenous roots, which I discovered.

after I was reunited with my family in about the 90s is when I really started getting into that. I started making the products. They were really great. I labeled them. My husband kind of did the graphic art for the labels and started putting them in stores. And I would drive them to stores and get a little check and then go back and make some more. And I started out in a little Tupperware container, went to a five gallon bucket, went eventually a 500 pound container. But I had this rep and he was gay.

And he lived in San Francisco. And that's why I was going to tell you this. so he there was a store called Buffalo Foods. I don't know if you know Buffalo Foods. It was in the district area where he lived, where there was a lot of, you know, gay people, gay men. And I sold the shit out of peppermint soap. I could not understand why they were buying it in bulk. Right.

And I asked Ron, I said, what's going on with Buffalo Foods? And he goes, they love that soap. It makes men's balls tingle.

I'm like, okay. So I, yeah, that was a great account. They're probably still carrying my products. I don't own the company anymore. It's in, I think, 64 countries today, but I started my kitchen and I got investors and, you know, I make things grow. It's just - So the soap still exists. yeah. Plant Life Inc. Okay. Because one of our dear friends in, we lived in Alameda for six years.

and one of our dear friends, Kurt, is like a soap connoisseur. So I'm gonna definitely send him some because his birthday's coming up this summer. He probably knows about it. It's been around for over 20 years. wow. He probably has some. His balls are probably tingling right now. We're talking about Northern California. Now, do you have critters? Do you and your husband have critters? I'm not married, but I do have two doggies. Yeah. Okay. I always thought I'd be freaking...

married, you know, like in a relationship at this age. I don't think I'm relationship material. Different strokes for different folks, right? no, it's not that I don't want to. I just I really think it has something to do with my I hate to blame adoption on it because I I'm really not I think it has a lot to do with the way I I grew up. Like I was groomed to.

and let people into my life that betrayed and abused me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I haven't been in a relationship for quite a while, but I had I don't know. It's like maybe it was a self -worth issue. You know, maybe I just didn't have enough self -worth. In fact, I know that's it because, you know, if you look at me on the outside, I'm attractive. I'm successful. I'm accomplished. I'm smart. I'm humble. Funny. Funny too.

But I mean, on the outside, I'm not saying that feels right, right? But that on the outside, that's what I think people see. But I don't think I felt that way. I've always felt like it just wasn't enough, you know? So, and I don't think it probably had to do with being relinquished. I'm sure that had something to do with it. But I had a really effed up childhood. And I...

Love my parents. Love my parents. My mom passed four years ago. I still miss her. And my dad passed when I was 19. I call him daddy. My daughter, the first baby I got to keep, I call her. She's 39 when I was writing my memoir. And I call my dad daddy and my mother mama. That's the way we grew up. She goes, you call him daddy? Are you sure you don't want to change that? I'm like.

Well, you know, it was the way it was. So, you know, you know, I mean, that's, that's what Kendall called, you know, calls his adoptive parents, his daddy and mama. So, I mean, and I call my mom mama. So, yeah, I think the mama thing's not so weird, but the daddy now is, you know, he's got this other, you know, sexual connotation. Then I'm also thinking of what's that called?

What's that Paul Newman movie where it's big daddy? I don't know. Is that Cat on a Hot Tin Roof? I don't know. I don't know. maybe. Maybe. So let me ask you this before we get into the nitty gritty. I mean, you know, we lived in Northern California for nine years and we still know a lot of people. Are you open to being fixed up? Hell yeah. Okay. All right. Are you just interested in men? Yeah.

Okay, that's fine. Unfortunately. That's cool. That's cool. My daughter married a woman and it worked out great for her. They got divorced, but the woman was like, I mean, if I could find somebody like her ex -wife that had a penis, I'd be all in. All right. He was so cool. But yeah, I just don't, not my thing. No, I get you. I get you. wow. So, okay. Before we, again, another question before we do the interview. You might have to like...

the audio. I mean, you know, sometimes we just go wild and wooly on the show. You know, the older you get, you think you would know yourself better, or maybe I'm just changing with age. I don't know. I'm an extrovert for sure. Like, for sure. I don't know if you do astrology, but I've messed with, you know, everything under the sun. And I've got five, seven places of Leo all in a row.

All above the horizon and all fire. I don't even have any air in my chart. How I wrote a book is beyond me. It was a manifestation of something greater than me. What's your birthday? July 27th. Okay. So Kendall is July 14th. I'm August 11th. you're Leo. Yes. To the nth degree. I have to do your chart. Yeah. I...

I love Leo's my brother's a Leo. He lives with me after my mom passed. He was displaced and so he's the other end of the house. Yeah. And my daughter, the one that that's 39 that married the woman that divorced the woman that has my grandson. She is an Aquarius and Aquarius and Leo are in opposition. We're close, but man, there's that mother daughter stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I bet. Yeah.

So fun. So fun. Well, it's funny you mentioned that because I was Instagram stalking you a little bit today because I saw you refer to yourself as grandma on your daughter's Instagram page and I wasn't sure if that was the daughter in the book. I'm a grandma on both sides, yeah. awesome. Yay. I'm hella old. That's a hella thing as a Northern California thing. Right, hella mess. I mean, 47 is an old. Come on now.

I'm not 47, darling. But I haven't even mentioned to you yet that Kendall's sister on his dad's side is also a Monica. OK, so when I grew up, I grew up in Alaska. So back in the olden days when it was a little town and, you know, nobody lived there, I was the only Monica in town that I knew of. So even when I moved to Sacramento in 74,

somebody let it go and then somebody else snapped it up and she said she was offered like 10, $12 ,000 for it. And I ended up with monica hall .com monica hall .net. Yeah, I snagged them. But if it's hard to be indexed on Google and I sell marketing and I, you know, I'm marketing person for a living and sell software. And it's really hard to get indexed for Monica Hall because there's so many of us.

didn't realize that. In fact, on Amazon and on Ingram Spark, when I have my book, I am confused with some other Monica Hall, the rights Georgian, like historical stuff. I'm like, she's not going to be happy being mixed with my practically still a virgin book. Right. It got fixed. But yeah. So, you know, when we started this whole thing with the family twist,

There's a European travel company, family travel company called Family Twist. And we're all, we're just fighting back and forth for the top spot on Google. And you know, I don't know if a family travel company wants to be associated with a podcast about NPEs and adoptees and donor conceived people, but whatever. Then they don't have a sense of humor. I'm sorry. There you go. Yeah. No, and we haven't heard from them and we haven't reached out to them either. It's just, but they own the familytwist .com, which is why we're Family Twist podcast. Yeah.

When I launched my soap company back in 94, I think I had my first website in 97 or eight, hired a company, spent 10 grand to get this fabulous website. Back then nobody was doing websites. Google was like, nobody used Google. It wasn't really a thing or anything. Plantlife .com was taken. So we never did get it. Even that far back, there was a company in Australia, it's plant.

plantlife .net. So the company is still around. They're now manufacturing San Clemente and they use still my same formulas. My formulas were so fabulous. There's that humility again, but they were really good. Totally really good. Like my lip balm would stop burns. Like there's, you know, it was a salve. It was really good stuff. You know, when I found my biological family, which I didn't really even realize it until a few weeks ago.

that my great grandmother was a medicine woman. She traveled with a buffalo, you know, on the hunts. Totally makes sense now. my goodness. Yeah. I mean, you should see all the remedies. I was making poultices. I was like the herbal, you know, wise woman. Well, you know, I mean, nature versus nurture is like a huge theme of the show. And like, I just love hearing that. That's amazing.

It is amazing because I mean nobody in my family is like that. No, nobody. You know, even my indigenous family, it skipped a couple of generations and it totally makes sense now. I'm a little bit fascinated with Alaska, but like the only two sort of like references I have to it directly are 30 Days of Night, which is a graphic novel slash movie about vampires going and invading.

And then the newest season of True Detective with Jodie Foster. that's sick. I totally so, you know, but it is.

Alaska, especially back in before the oil boom and during the oil boom was a very unique place. So when you watched The True Detective, it had a feel like that. In fact, some of those, because I would sneak out my bedroom window. I was a free spirit. My parents were old school. They were older. My mother was overprotective. I didn't like to be tied down. I like risk. I like my hair on fire. Probably why it made such a good book.

You were raised Catholic, as was I. Yeah. Right? -huh. -huh. I think I have a Virgin Mary up here. I have Buddha over there. I have Ganesh over there. My birth mother, my family. There's another Buddha. and I've got pictures of me when I was young for the inner child work. I mean, check, check, check. I'm doing everything I can, right? You're in your spiritual place right now, physically. Yes.

not compared to my room. My room buzzes. It literally buzzes because that's where I pray and meditate. And I have this beautiful altar. It has, you know, pieta, however you pronounce it, Virgin Mary, St. Monica, rosaries, crystals, you know, artifacts and...

And that's where I meditate and where the vibration in my room is so high. So I work with people. I mentor women, especially women that have had difficulty with addiction and trauma. And I am a coach. And sometimes I'll bring them into my room and just play the drum or a singing bowl, depending on what the intuition is there, and just watch her just...

just calm, but it's a special place. You know, they're vibrate, you know, I want to keep my vibration high. I've done a lot of work over the years to, you know, to do that. but this room's too, too. And my password for my computer and for work is I love my job, you know? So everything is, or it was, it's changed now, but it, you know, everything, what we say, what we do, what we think is all what we bring about.

So what we think about, we bring about. We think. We don't realize how we can. So I have all these little things around like God is my, and God is just whatever that is. For me, it's not any deity necessarily. But God is my source. I cannot see apart from Him. I see everything as blessed. So if I see everything as blessed, no matter what, then it shifts it.

Yeah. And I get better stuff, better, better experiences, better people, more people that I can help or that can help me, you know? The other one is, God does not need me to police his universe. That's for sure. Right. Right. I mean, I'm so controlling nature wise, you know, because I didn't have control over my my childhood or my young adult years. No control. So.

If I can, I remember I went to a therapist back in the 90s and when I exited that therapy, she wrote me this beautiful letter that I had gone through a workbook with her, the Men and Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse Workbook. And it was a pretty rough few years. But when she gave me that exit letter, it was so beautiful and so poetic. But how I didn't have any...

power in my life and I felt that if I controlled things, then I'd be safe. And I'm not giving her justice. It's put away in a book, but it is so true. So today I try not to be too controlling. I don't know how successful I am at that, but at least I know what I need to work on. That's a thing.

Well, before we get into the book, which I want to dig into, let's just talk a little bit about the summit because I'd never been to something like that before. And I was, you know, messaging, you know, my friends and Kendall and stuff as I was there. And they're just like, well, how is it? How is it? And the only word that could come up was life changing. Like it was like I felt I was buzzing the entire time I was there.

I had to step away at some times, didn't go back to the room for a few minutes and you know, like I'm gonna, between meals and stuff like that, I'm like, I'm gonna go brush my teeth and chill for a few minutes. Cause it was a lot, but it was, my goodness, so incredible. Like how would you describe that experience for you? That was my first adoptee retreat. I had gone to Cub, which was my first really big event, which is Concern United Birth Parents. That was, I think in October.

and just feeling like it was a lot. Yeah. Now you're not adopted. No. So.

you know, communicating with people. I've been on a lot of podcasts and I hadn't seen anybody in person. So being there and seeing somebody in person, giving them a hug, hanging out with them, having dinner or lunch with them was so wonderful. And, and, and then I had a table there with my, with my big old banner of my face when I was 17. And I shared the table with an adoptive mom. And this is an incredible thing.

So I'm a birth mom, which to some adoptees is like the antichrist. And I get that, right? And then I'm also an adoptee, but I was an adoptee first. And also there's other adoptees that, you know, everybody has different experiences, right? They didn't have a good reunion or they were secondary rejection or their family was abusive or they had narcissistic relatives or yeah, you know.

everything is complex in families, especially in adoption. I was asked to speak in a panel shortly, you know, a few months ago for a foster care adoptive mom retreat. And so I was there. I mean, I have quite the story and it wasn't very long. There were three of us. There was a kinship parent, a grandmother was raising her grandchild. There was a maybe 23 year old, a beautiful, soft spoken.

adoptee who actually she was a foster child and then there was me when I was introduced by the woman that had referred me to this I had talked to her years ago when she was thinking of adopting and I gave her my opinion unsolicited probably because I do I don't know maybe she did ask me I hope she did anyway when she introduced me she said when you know Monica's blah blah blah and

when I first talked to her and told her I was adopting, I went home and I was really angry by what she said to me. And I'm like, shoot, really? Because I didn't know that, right? And she goes, but when I was home and I was thinking about it, she was right. It's about the kids. It's about the kids, right? We make it about us. We make it everybody. And that's, you know, that's human nature. It's about the kids. So.

What I probably said to her is something about have the birth parents, because most of the adoptions are open. And in some of these cases, they're not able to see the birth parents because it's not safe or they're addicted or whatever. It doesn't matter. We still have this need most. And it was very evident with this foster child or young woman who was talking, because here she lived in foster care, grew up in foster care. And she says, and now she is in touch with her birth mother. She's like,

My birth mother's my hero. And she didn't raise her. She was in foster care. But yet, it came across, we still want connection to where we came from. And when I originally searched, I didn't want to replace my mother. I had a mother. I love my mom. By then, I didn't understand how dysfunctional my family was.

how really sick it was because I had no other experience. I still wanted to meet my birth mother. Anyway, so I spoke at this thing and it wasn't long. I told my story. There's not a lot of outside voice. It's just like my book. It's a novel. It's like a novel. And afterwards, I was contacted by one of the adoptive moms who wanted to do my book launch for me for free. wow.

Like my book launch party, she created all this social media for me. She got told me, get the banner, do this, do that. I'm a marketer, but I've never marketed a book before. And I mean, she just brought it and she's a ghostwriter and she's the one that shared the table with me. So she writes people's stories for them. Yeah. Because I'm telling you, this is hard to do. I've been sober 40 years.

clean and sober, no drugs or alcohol, no cocaine or Johnny Walker black for 40 years. But there were really dark times because when you write a memoir, even writing novels for people, because you draw from your own experience, it can get very dark. And adoptees have some definite trauma and some people suffer from depression, anxiety, and trauma or whatever. And so she's an option because

She can do the interviews. She can interview the people. She can write your story for you. You can have some input from a bit of a distance. Like with my editor, I worked with a developmental editor who was out of Wisconsin and she was, and I'm in California. I've never met her in person and I've only talked to her on the phone twice in eight years, cause she's an introvert. But boy, that woman, right? Every time I wanted to, I just want to talk to somebody. Okay. Just, just talk to me. I'll figure it out by talking.

Well, everything she, you know, give me these long emails and stuff and we got to kind of know each other personally. She knows all my dark secrets and, but it forced me to write my everything, you know, emails. And I, I communicate by talking, but boy, that was a long drawn out eight years and it was very expensive. Anybody, even if you're a trained writer, which I was not.

You still need a copy editor if you want something good. Of course. You know, to be published. So this ghost writing thing's a pretty good gig. So she shared a table with me and she's so sweet. And she was so moved by what I said. You know, unfortunately her baby, she's tried to find the birth mother, she's living in her car and she's addicted and it's just a lot of really bad stuff. At the end of the day, which is a term I hate, I hear it all the time, but I'm saying it, okay. At the end of the day.

There's destiny. Yeah. You know, I mean, she can try to make everything right for her kids and be the best mom she can be. But in the long run, I mean, there's just so much that's not in our control. And that's one of the things I've learned is that I've got to step away because I mean, I, if I were to rewrite my life, I'd screw it up. I would screw it up. I mean, it was.

Seemingly horrific people that read my book or like you're so strong here did it like yeah, but you know, I just kept going I didn't know any different Yeah, what are you gonna do? You got to keep going and I really didn't know How right you know because how I dealt with things and this is just my nature is I I push it down I repress what I can't handle I repress so I had a lot of repressed memories I

many repressed emotions, but that was my secret sauce. Now I've got this incredible book that's like, has over 85 star reviews and people are saying the most beautiful things like, I mean, and I can't believe it. Like this one review was so beautiful. I cried and it is, I think I posted it today on a story. It is for those women and men who have been wounded,

traumatized and felt unable to tell their stories, much less feel heard and understood, Monica has definitely given them permission. And even more than that, she has shared the greatest gift of all, the ability to heal. Yeah, yeah, that hits. I mean, I mean, and yeah, you know that. So my my past and all that seemingly horrible stuff.

is my greatest gift. And so I encourage my friend who shared the table with me, who worries about her children being addicted, missing their birth parents to just lean away and do the best you can and let, you know, God does not change you to police his universe. With what I went through, and I'm really strong, like my nature is strong. It's just the way I was born, it's the way I came. But, and I would do it again.

You know, I've put on a lot of weight. I've had drinking dreams. My knee's now a mess. I don't know why. My daughter says, problems with knees is ego. That's probably right. I definitely got an ego. my gosh, my right knee was bothering me today. Don't tell me that. Well, think about it. Kneeling, you know, being, you know, Yes, yes, yes. in its humble position, not, I mean,

I can't kneel anymore, so that's good, you know. But actually I do, I have underneath my desk, just in case I decide I want to pray. I've got this thing. I mean, I've got knee pads that I have to put on when I clean the floors. You know, if I really want to clean the floors well, I got to put knee pads on. honey, you can come clean my floors. I never have gotten on my knees for a floor. you got to do that to get the deep clean.

Yeah, well, I just hire somebody. I've never been a floor person, okay? Don't look on top of my refrigerator. Don't look at my floors unless I have my housekeeper. I have one that comes every month, you know, was every two weeks. I'm like, yeah, I've got a small place, you know, and the older I get, the more shit I get. Like I got stuff everywhere and the people die and they give me their parents stuff. And now I got all this stuff and I can't say no because it means so much to them. They don't have room. Say no, you got to say no.

I'm saying no now. I am definitely saying no. And I've, you know, and you know, one of the things that's happened too, as a result of the finishing of the book, which I know has done a whole lot for my psyche and my self -worth and my self -esteem and being wanting to care of that girl on the cover that I haven't treated super well over the years. I have removed people from my life in the last few months. You know, a best friend.

a half sister and I've had distance from some family that I yearned for, but I wouldn't let them treat my daughter the way they treat me. So why would I let them treat me like that? And I have a mentor and she's very wise and she said to me, Monica, you're like the battered wife. You get a bloody nose and a black eye and then he brings you flowers and you take them back. And I've been doing this for decades with some people.

Because I've always seen the way I'm wired is I want to see the best in people. Maybe it was because of my mom, you know, I made my friend Kelly that I grew up with in Alaska or she was there with me through the troubling times and she was, she had her own, you know, family issues for sure. And she'd say to me when I was writing my book and she's still in Alaska and I, I call her and just fraught over this thing that I discovered and.

and trying to unwind my relationship with my mother. And she'd been, it wasn't until she was passed that I could see her with clarity because she'd say, Kelly would say to me, Monica, you've always made excuses for your mom. And that's what I do with people I love. And maybe that's part of being relinquished. Maybe it's partly my nature, but I didn't take very good care of that girl.

I put her in places to be hurt all the time, you know, with wanting to be, you know, included or wanted to be accepted or wanted to be looked up to or wanted to be friends. You know, it was always about never being enough that I put myself in places to be hurt. Right. But as you said, she was just a girl. Yeah. Well, now she's 66. Okay. So it looks like looks like 51. So there we go.

Thank you. That's the indigenous. I'm so. Hey, it's great. I mean, that is true. I looked like at least 10 years younger. My knee doesn't feel like it. But that's some wisdom. Major wisdom. Yeah. Yeah. Who came up with the title? I did. So this whole time I was writing, you know, the book was like,

180 ,000 words right. I have a really long story. But you can't do that. No. And a in a book and have anybody. A third, yeah a third's probably got to go. Yeah. Yeah. So half of it went. And it's so tight now. It's so good. You know I had my editors I said you know this is I'm okay. You know they say kill your darlings. That's part of the you know you know in writing.

Nobody wants to kill this stuff that they wrote because it's so, you know, I was freaking over it. I'm like, take the shit out that's not working. And I mean, that was after it was already condensed half by half. And, and she did, and it's so tight and so beautiful. The chapters are short. It's a quick read. It's a page turner. And I guess, you know, I don't, I think I tried the end.

the chapters like that, but I don't know that I had any idea of how impactful it would be on people. I just did it, you know, and I read it. I'm reading it for a second time now that it's published and I'm like turning the page while I'll just read one more. Like it's my own story. It's like reading something. Yeah. It's quite remarkable that, that I actually, you know, finished it. And so the editor was super helpful.

I couldn't have done it with a developmental editor because I really struggled in school. And for many years, I felt very inadequate about my education, even as I never went to college. I did take some chemistry when I was manufacturing, like, you know, I have my manufacturing business. But and struggled through it. But, you know, when I'm interested in something, I can pay attention. But if I'm not, I can't focus.

Her adoptive mom. Yeah, whose name is Pat and they were incredible people. They still are. She's still alive, but they adopted two other daughters after my daughter. They flew her out for her. And that's a whole really interesting scenario how this all came about for her 18th birthday. But her mother would call me. She goes, you know what your daughter did today. my God, I love that.

That and that was that was so sweet. That's big. That is big. He's really. Yeah, she was really. I'm sure there was a little insecurity there. They flew their daughter out to meet me for her 18th birthday. You being Catholic. OK. So when I was locked in the house for the six months that I was pregnant and this was a dark Alaska winter, you watch True Detective. It's freaking dark in Alaska. Yeah, that was a.

further north. But in the wintertime, we had like five hours on the shortest day of light. And so it's cold. And my dad wasn't into fishing or, you know, sports or any of that. He was a businessman. So and they hid me in the house because I was pregnant at 15. And so I was there. All my juvenile delinquent behavior, which was exorbitant. That was a lot. I was sneaking out my window.

taking drugs of the 70s. I was breaking into houses. I was riding in stolen cars. I was vandalizing. I was beating people up. I was throwing huge ice chunks off the top of the JCPenney's parking lot trying to hit patrons as they walked on the sidewalks. I mean, I was so bad. Yeah, you were living your best life, weren't you? Actually, I had a lot of fun, but I did. I mean, you know.

But I know I'm not gonna share my stories right now. Like, yeah, I hear you. I hear you. I wanted my hair on fire most of the time. And I also I think it was a way to take my power back that I didn't that I lost in my family. I don't even know where I was going with that. Where was I going with that? Did you ask me a question? last week, so it was super dark and I was locked up in the house. But during that time, you being Catholic.

My mother had said the rosary, you know, every day. And they said that if you say a novena, especially a 54 day novena, that's every day praying the rosary for 54 days in a row. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, bless our Thou among women, bless the fruit of Thy will, you know, that whole thing. Hail Holy Queen Mother of Rosary. I still remember it, okay? I repeated the Hail Mary thousands of times. I don't know what's...

54 times, I don't know, it's a lot, thousands of times. And I prayed that my daughter would get good parents. And it's interesting, I never prayed for her to get parents like mine. I must have known there wasn't something right. Intuitively. Did the acting out start prior to the pregnancy or post -pregnancy? Yes, yes. No, I had some pretty horrific events.

The first one was at 11. In fact, it's in the back of my book. And it's going to be in book two. It's called the teaser chapter for book two. And it's called Daddy's Girl. And so that was that's an event that happened when I was 11. And I didn't understand it. And it really caused me some major issues. You still have deep affection. No, no.

Part of it, I think too, is that when I was adopted, I was in a foster home for three and a half, four months, something like that. And there were 10 other babies in that foster home. And I had a mommy, you know, and she was undivided. I had undivided detention. She was 32. My father was 42. And then we got my brother three years later who was super sensitive and...

had all kinds of like sickly issues and she had to take care of him and I was kind of just dropped. So I lost my I lost my birth mother and then I lost my foster mother if that was even any kind of bonding. I don't know how long I was in that house. I don't know I don't know anything. I just know they got me out of the house. I think there were 11 babies or something in there and one of the little boy who was a year old wasn't expected to live. He was going to die.

So that's the house they got me out of. And then I get my mom and then I lose her to my brother. And then my father, my father was a narcissist and a salesman and really smart and very charming. And people really respected him in town, shook his hand. Howard Hall, you know, it was everywhere he went, he was famous. What I didn't realize that he was doing to me and then I...

did realize when I was writing the book is he loved on me. I didn't even know really what that was until I experienced it a few years ago in a relationship. And boy does it work for me because I was, you know, praised and loved and, you know, called sweetheart and, you know, and I was strong and I was smart and I was outgoing and he saw those things in me, things that he wanted in himself.

And I was stronger than all the boys and I could beat them all in races. And even in junior high, I was beating people up and winning. He goes, did you kick her ass? I'm like, yeah, I went Howard at the dinner table. My mother would freak out. But that was my dad. And so even though there was abuse there, I got really confused with the abuse and the love and the love bombing and feeling special with him. And so I just.

I still love my parents. I still, my dad died when I was 19 and that's when I started drinking and using. We were here in California by then, right after my daughter was born. Nine months later, we moved here to Sacramento area and my dad died. I was 74. He died in 77. And that's when I started binge drinking, Scotch, black label and sorting as much cocaine as I could get. I do not have a deviated septum. Thank God, but.

You're not quite to Stephen Hicks territory. Pardon me? You're not quite to Stephen Hicks territory then. Not quite. I think I got it. It got arrested in time, you know, because I got really sick with probably it was probably alcoholic hepatitis from binge drinking. I turned yellow. My eyes turned yellow. I couldn't get out of bed. I was so sick. And it took a couple of years to get that cleaned up. And so I stopped drinking. And then and that's when I searched for my biological family when I was 20.

In fact, I have my search finder here. This says adoptees have mothers too. T -W -O from Alma, Adopt E -Liberty Movement Association. And this was back in 1980 when you had to write letters. All the letters are right here. I even wrote Pierre Trudeau trying to get a copy of my original birth certificate. I have all these bumper stickers I kept. You know, what's this one say?

adoptees support rights going through it. I hadn't really looked at it for years or that since I searched and that's when I realized not too long ago how the place where I was adopted or held there was so many babies there. I didn't know that. So, you know, I just put things away and shut the door on them. And I did that with my journals because I wrote in journals. And when I was pregnant, I wrote in journals and then it was Pandora's box. I shut it away.

but I did get a copy of my adoption order while I was pregnant. You know, I started asking more about my birth letter and my mom said that there was some papers in the safety deposit box and I was Gloria Deborah Reed. That was what my name was and I've asked people, do I look like I could be a Gloria? They go, yeah, you look like you could be a Gloria. I see it. I can see it. What would you tell that girl on the cover right now? What would you share with her?

A lot of what I just said to you, but I promised her a couple days ago that I'm going to take better care of her, you know, clean up my diet a little better, try to get more sleep. Although I love life. I love to stay up late and I get up early. So I need to, I need to start trying to go to bed earlier, but it's like, I don't want to. I have so much to do. I know. I hear you.

Yeah, I'm working on the book. I'll read you the back. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Adopted and raised during Alaska's lawless oil boom era, Monica grows up amidst trauma and dysfunction. As a teen, she rebels into delinquency. When Monica is raped and becomes pregnant, her religious parents push her to give up her baby, her only known blood relative, for adoption. These events kick off a decades -long search for family and belonging.

Thread by thread, she weaves together the truth of her identity, pulled by yearning for the daughter and the mother who gave her away.

Let's talk a little bit about, let's go back to nature versus nurture. Let's go back to blood and non -blood. Like what was going through that girl's mind when she was thinking, I've got to give up the only blood relative that I know. I believe I had Stockholm syndrome. I didn't realize it until I was writing and my son said, mom, if you or dad did that to me, I had to run off and told, because I was severely beaten with a hanger at 14. And so.

But I loved my parents and I knew it would kill my mother to go in foster care because adoptive, at least my adoptive mom was terrified of losing me and my brother that our birth mothers would come back for us. And so I had that narrative, even when things got really bad in my head, I never ran away. I never, never, I wanted to so many times. I just kept moving on and kept surviving and.

The thing that I discovered while writing this is that I was groomed to relinquish my child. And I was groomed because that was the narrative in the 70s and the 60s, especially in Catholic families, Catholic families that had adopted two children. The whole societal norm is adoption is wonderful. The adopters are wonderful people. They're...

you know, saving or savior ism of these children that these poor kids and that need a home. And of course, we know that that that narrative probably isn't the way it should be. And, you know, that's the other thing. I don't know how to articulate it. I think I did a pretty good job in the book, but it was really hard in that by showing because in the book it's it's a story. I'm not telling you anything. It's you know, you kind of make your own conclusions from the from the story, but.

I felt so low next to the birth parents. I mean, the nun told me about the parents, you know, basically that she found family for my baby and they were wonderful. The mother was blonde. The father was darker like me. And he was part French, which is what I thought I was when I was, you know, from the non -identifying information, the indigenous had been left off probably from prejudice in Canada, very prejudice up there.

and they did that 60s scoop where they would take indigenous babies out of these homes and put them in white families. So that was the whole thing that was going on up there. And so I had this idea of these parents as being rich and smart and sophisticated and so much better than me. And there is an imbalance there of what a mother should be. There's a book that just was written.

I don't know if you've interviewed her yet, Rebecca Wellington, and she wrote, Who is a Worthy Mother? And it breaks that down in that, who is a worthy mother? So I was 15 and I was raped, although I kept that a secret. I never told my parents what happened and I was a virgin because I had this very strict, very weird dad that would...

that elevated virginity in sort of this Madonna fashion and mother, my mother being a saint because he couldn't get her in the sack until they were married. Mind you, he met her when she was just a week over 15. She just turned 15 and he was 25. Of course she was a virgin and she was very compliant by nature. So that was just my mom, very sensitive and compliant. She was an artist. It was just what you do. There was no...

there wasn't as much law in Alaska back then. It was the wild wild west literally. It literally was the wild wild west. And then when we got the oil boom, we had $900 million that the state was going to receive from the oil leases, the land leases. $900 million. That's a lot of money. You know, Alaska was a place too where people would come. I mean, there's a different soul that wants to go to Alaska. You know, generally somebody that has, that wants to,

you know, make something, have a new start, maybe hide or just has that and you know, that adventurous spirit. It's a different type of soul that likes that type of lifestyle. And my father was a businessman, so he was there for other reasons. I now believe he was there for the gambling, unchecked gambling and prostitution that he could partake in. and the, you know, business, but there, you know, he could get away with a lot of, people could get away with a lot of stuff in Alaska you couldn't get away with here, for sure.

And so I had this dark six months. In fact, I meant to tell you about that true detective, because I forgot to say this, is in that, do you remember those houses or those places she would go interviewing these people? It was dark. The way the inside of the houses looked, the indigenous people, that kind of thing. That was exactly what I saw when I snuck out of my window in the 70s. That.

It was like deja vu. And they had captured, I mean, this was supposed to be current times, but they captured what it was like back then when I stuck out my window and I saw some very dark things. I got myself in some very scary places, just wanting to escape my house. And I did it, you know, all the, all the time. Winter didn't matter if it was winter or if it was, you know, twilight, summer days. I was, I was sneaking out.

And that was from 13 to just around 15 when I was raped. And I was raped as a virgin by somebody that I had been, that I had known that was older. And I kept that a secret. And so there was, you know, a double amount of shame there because back in the seventies, you didn't, you answered your parents. You looked straight in the eye. Yes, mama. Yes. Thank you. No daddy. Yes, please.

Sit up to the table, put your napkin in your lap. Children should be seen and not heard. You slapped across the face. My mother was a rager. My father wasn't. She was a disciplinarian. But he beat me. That time he beat me was in a sexual pleasure thing. And she later told me she made him stop when she saw pleasure in his eyes. So there was a lot of things that I

repressed that came out during this. And I know there is still a lot more repressed and I am completely okay with leaving them where they are. I may, I came here strong enough to be able to survive it. And you know, your mind takes care of you and it protects you from what you can't handle. And so I did, I did some EMDR eye movement, reprocessing desensitization over zoom with a therapist in 2020.

particularly to be able to gain access to a couple of things that I wanted to write about and not feel guilty. I knew they happened, but I didn't have super clear memory of them. And I went through with this therapist, 11 big T traumas. So she would say, you have 11 big T traumas. And she put her fingers up with a T, 11, not one, not two, but 11 big T or, you know, a little T or I mean, there was.

gazillions of those growing up, you know, with all the gaslighting and all the secrecy and all that. But the big T traumas were a lot. And I am definitely a survivor. There is no doubt about it. No doubt about it. Yes. Yes. Wow. my goodness. So much to unpack here. Thank you for bringing up the therapy just because I don't know if you had an opportunity to connect with Jeanette Yoff.

the therapist at Summit, but she's been on the show and I asked her if she could find a therapist for Kendall to help him get over his fear of flying because I want him to be able to get out there and tell his story. But like we had a bad flight a few years ago, strangely enough, meeting his half sister for the first time, but coming back from New Orleans in January, like we had to circle the airport a few times in Boston and only had one runway open.

It was a nasty flight. I mean, people were getting sick on the flight, which I've never heard in my life. So it was bad. But like we landed and we're fine, like, babe, we're good. And he's like, I am never flying again. And he's only flown once since then it was for work. That's the only reason he'll fly is for work. So I'm hopeful that that type of therapy will be able to help him. There is absolutely that type of therapy. I would love to talk a little bit about your discovery of being an indigenous.

You know, I don't, it's in the book, you know, and I had hired a final copy editor to get the final copy done. And she was referred to me by the woman that, this is so interesting to, you know, Corey, how things work out. So I started to write a memoir. My daughter asked me to write a memoir. She thought it was fascinating that I had been adopted and that I had relinquished a child for adoption. I was reunited. She said, mom, you should really do this. So in 2016, I started writing.

And then I was getting a resume done, some woman in Wisconsin that we found on Upwork or one of those. And I happened to mention that, or I was asking her doing a resume and I happened to mention that I was writing a memoir. Like I was writing a memoir. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, right? I mean, I skipped all through school. Yeah. And so she said, well, I'm a developmental, nonfiction developmental editor. I'm like, what's that?

And so I started working with her and she's in Wisconsin. I'm in Sacramento. Guess where she got her master's degree? Davis? University of Anchorage, Alaska. my gosh. What are the chances? And so she had worked on some books for old timers with the old crazy seventies. She knew about the stuff. And then every time I'd write, she, we, she know where it was. It was just.

It was a really incredible experience for both of us. She knew where these places was a small town. And then when, so she was the developmental editor. And then when I was ready for a final copy edit, she recommended somebody who said, and she was excellent. Not cheap, none of this is cheap. I got the best, right? And she was her roommate in Alaska. And so.

She knew about Alaska too. And she wasn't taking a lot of work, but she wanted this piece because probably of the subject matter. And when she read it, she said to me, I didn't know you were indigenous. She was fascinated by that. She's the one that got, she managed the proof, because then you've got to do a proof, proofread. She does the final copy, edit with the footnotes and all that. And then I had a proofreader, which is another thousand dollars. And she said,

when I got it back and it was done, she said, and Larry says he found your book very interesting. He's an adoptive parent. And of course he is. Wow. It's like a Petri dish. We just attract all that. Yeah. So yeah, it's been pretty interesting. And the book itself, it's something I'm really proud of, that I finished.

that I didn't quit when I, there was times where I thought I can't do this anymore. And I'd get, somebody would respond to a blog post with their own personal loss and story. And I realized that I need to keep writing for, for others. And I'm really glad I finished and it's, it is good. And it was, you know, I was going to do traditional publishing and at the end, I mean, it's, I just said, no, I don't, I don't want anything changed. I want to.

managed the cover. I hired a really fantastic cover designer. And I, I don't want to wait for another year or so you get a you know, first you got to shop it to an agent, then they've got a then they've got to shop to a publisher, and then they take a year to do all their their stuff. I'm sorry. I, I know I'm I know it's it's happening now. You're not doing this to you're not doing this to get rich. You're doing this to get to help people. yeah, no, there's no there's no getting rich. I mean,

if there's a miracle somehow, but you know, you don't, my whole purpose is getting it in the hands of people that can help. And, and it is helping, you know, there's nothing that, I mean, it's proof that you can still survive and you know, people cry and they laugh. It's funny. Cause you know, you've talked to me, I'm kind of just, you know, real, right? Well, it's so, I mean, humor has to be part of the healing.

You know, we've got to have that. Well, I was a shit show, okay? There's some chapters I still read and I laugh. I'm like, my God, you're telling people this stuff? You're telling people this stuff because this is going to help change lives. Yes, and so that's what I really want people to do is when they, you know, people don't think about it. They'll text me or they'll email me or they'll put a review. And what I need them to do is share it. Or if they know somebody that...

that can get it out there, you know, because when you're traditionally published, you get the New York Times and you get all these things. But when you're self -published, which is what I did, you don't get those. You've got to do it yourself. And so it's super important. It's super important.