Shownotes
Jean, from Boulder City, Nevada, shared that her raising parents had their flaws, from addiction to enablement, but she knows they loved her and they did the best they could with what they had in their toolbox.
Searching for her birth mother, the woman was found quickly, their resemblance was shocking, and after discovering some disturbing facts about the woman's past, maternal reunion remains an unmet need for Jean. However, when she learned there would be no reunion, Jean could not have been in a better place than among other adoptees.
This is Jean's journey.
Who Am I Really?
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Transcripts
246 - Everyone Is Doing The Best They Can With The Skills They Have
[:Cold Cut
[:[00:00:11] Jean: And they were flawed. They also genuinely tried their best. I mean, my mother for all of her screwed up this. for all of her trauma I know she loved me, she did her best, that's the thing, it's like, they did the job, they raised me, I love them,
Show Open
[:[00:01:13] Damon (2): Her resemblance was shocking, and after discovering some disturbing facts about the woman's past, maternal reunion remains an unmet need for Jean. However, when she learned there would be no reunion, Jean could not have been in a better place than among other adoptees.
[:[00:01:33] Damon (2): Jean's birth mother gave birth to her in the 1960s in Spokane, Washington, at a Salvation Army hospital for unwed mothers. After two months, her raising parents took her home to Yakima, Washington, where she was raised as an only child.
[:
adopted, but I knew what it meant. And I knew that I was so yeah, no, I was the only special chosen child.
[:[00:02:12] Damon: What kind of child were you growing up? What kinds of things were you into? What'd you like to do?
[:[00:02:36] Jean: I was definitely different. Which they unfortunately embraced and never discouraged. So, I think they just had, they realized they had a lot of energy that they needed to control. And so I think they tried to funnel that at least into positive things. So
[:[00:02:53] Damon: Like I'm this bundle of energy, I'm rolling. And these folks are just happy right where they are. When did you really pick up on [00:03:00] that difference?
[:[00:03:07] Jean: Right. I mean, I am one of these kids who always knew I was adopted, again, raised with all that loving indoctrination, but I would have been medicated in like the current era. Um, then I was just, Oh, you're a hyperactive child. Now I would have been diagnosed, I'm sure, with ADD, ADHD or something like that.
[:[00:03:44] Jean: So, that was one of the things that I started to realize where. Okay, I'm apparently different, and I needed to maybe settle down or behave better.
[:[00:04:03] Jean: I learned because I knew that, as an only child, I had to make friends, right? I have no default older sibling or younger sibling to go with me to go places, right? If I wanted to go to the mall or the movies, I'm the one that had to call a friend. So it really was that social pressure. I think that I learned that I needed to know how to behave a little bit better and make friends more easily so that I could go do things that I wanted to do.
[:[00:04:41] Damon: It's funny how that happens too, with teenagers, right? We, as parents. try to tell them, you shouldn't do that. And you try to give them all this guidance. But it's not until they go out in the world and they realize that, not showering for two days, not cool for the girls you want to get next to or something the social pressure just changes the dynamic and you don't have to [00:05:00] deliver the message.
[:[00:05:11] Jean: Yeah. I think I did definitely have to learn how to tamp down some of my energy and my personality and not have to be the center of attention all the time.
[:[00:05:22] Jean: So
[:[00:05:36] Jean: Yeah. So here's where we're going to have.
[:[00:06:05] Jean: He very nearly died of mumps when he was about four years of age and sustained an extremely high fever over several days, which has the sided effect of killing sperm. And so when he went into the army in the 1950s and it's like put it in a cup, son, they came back with a well. You're not going to be a dad.
[:[00:06:45] Jean: And so what that made for the dynamic of my family was, there's a lot of shame in adoption, right? There's a lot of shame about infertility. My dad had none of that. He had none of that. That was not present in [00:07:00] my family. So I'm grateful for that. That was one of the things that I think my parents got right.
[:[00:07:33] Jean: So she was really good at hiding that. so, It's hard for me to unpack if you will, the psychological impact of being raised with addiction in addition to the impact of being adopted. So both things are always present in me and I'm always having to sort that out. And yeah, so,
[:[00:07:54] Damon: Let me ask about what your first [00:08:00] inclination was that addiction had a hold over your raising mother? What did you what do you recall where you were just like, Oh, something's not right here.
[:[00:08:22] Jean: I could wake up to mommy singing a happy tune. and come home after school to crying, raging, screaming mommy. And I wouldn't know why. And my solution to that was I just left. I just stayed gone from the house as much as I could until my dad was there at, at home over dinner to then be the buffer for the rest of the evening.
[:[00:08:49] Damon: when did you start that escapism?
[:[00:09:04] Damon: there.
[:[00:09:06] Damon: Wow, interesting. That's really fascinating. I can't help wondering, you've talked about being this tigger and few human form sort of bouncing around from thing to thing, but you've also got escapism. Right. And I'm wondering if one fed the other that you had the natural inclination for this, interest in everything.
[:[00:09:38] Jean: very well on TV right now. I would say peg Boom in the slot.
[:[00:09:56] Damon: I'm out of here. And automatically you've just, that's your first bounce [00:10:00] is I'm bouncing on to the next thing so I can find something that feels a little safer, a little more, secure.
[:[00:10:17] Jean: And we talk a lot about, attachment, right.
[:[00:10:21] Jean: I would say to you, honestly, my mother was not available for me to attach to.
[:[00:10:30] Jean: Sh He was not emotionally available to me.
[:[00:10:34] Jean: And so. You add in this already pre verbal separation trauma into that. And so, what I think about is that I learned very early that I couldn't rely on anyone else.
[:[00:10:52] Damon: That's really interesting. I could see how you would get that lesson. Do you recall having a conversation with your dad, like, what's going on with [00:11:00] mom?
[:[00:11:09] Damon: So what was their interaction like? Do they have the same mercurial, up and down that you were exposed to?
[:[00:11:37] Damon (2): As a teenager, already living with imbalance at home, Jean experienced the classic evolution of hormonal and emotional maturity all teenagers go through. she said she learned as a lot of young women do about the easy approval that comes from the attention of boys. Jean started to experiment with alcohol and some drug use at an early age. It wasn't [00:12:00] exactly a rebellious stage because she never cut school or acted out.
[:[00:12:25] Jean: I didn't understand it to me. It was just one more way that my mother was crazy. because I had long since given up on there being any kind of emotional safety there I had just given up I mean, this was a memory that I forgot about until just a few years ago.
[:[00:13:31] Damon: Yeah, absolutely. Every child, regardless of adoption, right?
[:[00:13:35] Damon: This
[:[00:13:56] Damon: One might think that you could have been quite literally in the best place that [00:14:00] you could have, but because he was in that relationship with that particular woman it put his own burden on him. And therefore he wasn't able to perform the duties that he would perform for strangers, the other children in his school for you, his daughter.
[:[00:14:16] Jean: Yeah, I mean, that's a dynamic that just is it lives there and it sits in my back pocket and it's a truth that I know
[:[00:14:30] Damon (2): And that's clear that there was. I've heard that cutting what they call it when are carving like that is a means by which for a person to at least feel something for lack of better words. Again, I'm not clinically trained, but my daughter used to cut. And because folks don't feel like they're feeling what they want to feel.
[:[00:15:11] Jean: Yeah. I mean, first, I'm sorry that, your family's, been through that. And it's like, we, as human beings, I think, do not know how to get our own needs met unless we get that behavior modeled for us. And so, if no one is successfully laying out for us from a very young, intuitive age, right?
[:[00:15:39] Damon: Most
[:[00:15:41] Damon: That's right. We don't have the language for it. And there's so many signals in society that suggests that you should just know how to do stuff, right? That you're supposed to be strong and independent and how come you don't know by now and all this other stuff.
[:[00:16:15] Damon: for this. This isn't about you. You can't blame yourself for emotions. You were not given nor validated for experiences you didn't have in your life. You can't blame yourself for not knowing things that nobody taught you. And so I just I would encourage anybody listening who's thinking about these kinds of things, especially with your own kids.
[:[00:16:50] Jean: right? I mean, my mantra, that I try to live by is everyone is doing the best they can with the skills they have available to them at [00:17:00] the time.
[:[00:17:16] Damon (2): She didn't want to disturb her birth mother. So she never searched for her birth family. Jean didn't feel like she had the right to interrupt the woman's life. It wasn't until 2020, when Jean got an email that said she had matches in her ancestry DNA that things began to change. She hadn't logged into the platform for years since she submitted her DNA test on a lark with her husband and her mother in law.
[:[00:18:02] Damon (2): But the two matches were not related to one another. Each was a hint about her maternal and paternal connections, respectively.
[:[00:18:17] Jean: And I, at that point in my life, And he's like, babe, if your mom is out there still and alive, she's already well into her seventies, probably. It's like, no one in this scenario is getting any younger. So if you want to do this, you'd better get after it.
[:[00:18:33] Jean: Nope. He isn't. So that kicked it off and, Because I was born in Washington state, unbeknownst to me, I could have access to my birth certificate based upon the year that I was born.
[:[00:18:49] Jean: I mean, all I got was that thankless piece of paper in just a regular envelope from the state of Washington.
[:[00:19:11] Jean: It was like a Friday, the first Friday in April of that 2021 we're into now. so I have the place where she was born, the year she was born, and then, which is in the Dakotas. Upper Midwest and her name. And so I called my mother in law who's really good in ancestry. And I said, mom, will you do this for me?
[:[00:19:55] Damon: My gosh, for real.
[:[00:20:05] Damon: Really? Wow. What was that like for you to see this reflection of yourself before your eyes?
[:[00:20:19] Jean: one of my best friends said it's genie with a perm, which I just had to laugh at. But yeah, I mean, it's like, I mean, there, there are not words when you've never seen it, it just drops you.
[:[00:20:43] Damon: I had no idea what she looked like. But when I saw her for the first time, we were face to face because I surprised her at her office and the immediate second of seeing her face, I could see my face on her face. Just I didn't stop to process. It [00:21:00] happened instantaneously, and it was indescribable how quickly I recognized, holy crap, that's my face on that woman.
[:[00:21:17] Jean: which I'm
[:[00:21:20] Jean: I mean, yeah, no, it's, so I thought about it and I thought, okay, I know I want to reach out.
[:[00:21:46] Jean: And and then I hear nothing nothing and nothing And she lives now in a suburb of Denver. It's interesting to me because from what I've seen in all the other research. There's a [00:22:00] couple of really sad points that I want to back up and share about her non identifying information and also what's in the DNA.
[:[00:22:21] Damon: Really?
[:[00:22:25] Damon: Did you discover this along your journey to find her?
[:[00:22:31] Damon: Do you think that she
[:[00:22:41] Damon: Yeah, right.
[:[00:22:47] Damon: he's
[:[00:22:49] Jean: He dies when she is a very young child her mother remarries when she's about 15 and all the older sibs are already out of the house and he's [00:23:00] abusive. So he's smacking them around. And he's the chief of police, so nothing's going to happen to him.
[:[00:23:29] Jean: So she relinquishes me in late April. She goes home. She goes back to where she was from, but less than two years later, her mother dies.
[:[00:23:41] Jean: so I have to think very carefully, you know, we all know that if we're reaching out to that mother, all that she has lost and all that she may have been through, and I'm asking her to open a Pandora's box that is even more [00:24:00] painful than just me.
[:[00:24:02] Jean: It's all of that.
[:[00:24:37] Damon: If she's too young to move out on her own, heaven forbid, he actually found out that she was pregnant cause he's a cop. They, police have friends in other States. They can figure stuff out. I mean, And if he was abusive, he, I'm sure he had some, where the hell are you going and I'm going to figure it out kind of stuff to him too.
[:[00:25:08] Jean: Right. It has, I mean, how would her pain not be tied into those other things? Absolutely those other truths, yeah.
[:[00:25:21] Jean: No,
[:[00:25:39] Damon: Let's just say that at its very least. escaping. And you've admitted that you sought affirmation from other people and it's possible that this was her scenario. Wow, that's really wild.
[:[00:26:01] Damon (2): Jean's initial outreach through letters happened in 2021. Over the next two years, Jean would send Christmas cards with nothing more than a simple message, quote, love Jean and her phone number stuffed in the envelope.
[:[00:26:32] Damon (2): There was just no way to know what kind of environment her cards were landing in. 2024, Jean made plans to attend Untangling Our Roots. It's a summit that brings together adoption, assisted reproduction, and parent not expected, or NPE, communities together to provide education. Support community and allow healing across these lived experiences.
[:[:
[00:27:36] Jean: I could meet you anywhere. Would just love to see your face. Ran this past a couple of different birth parents, actually, that I know a few birth mothers who are friends of mine to just say, check my language here, with this. I'm going to send you packing or send you hopefully to meet me, both said no.
[:[00:27:57] Jean: Yeah, it's lovely. Everything's fine. [00:28:00] So I sent it and nothing. And then I go to the conference. So getting in on Thursday night is like the opening of the festivities. Have a great time, have an amazing, wonderful time. It's wonderful to be in community which is, it's an adoption and right to know conference where you have people from all parts of the constellation and the right to know movement all coming together.
[:[00:28:39] Jean: Right. But she sent no response until Friday. So Friday, first full day of the conference, my husband calls me and he says, I have a handwritten letter from Denver. And I said, okay. And he's [00:29:00] like, let me open this and let me read it. And then I'll call you. And I said, okay. And.
[:[00:29:11] Damon: She
[:[00:29:14] Damon: you were right there where it would have been closest.
[:[00:29:17] Damon: Wow.
[:[00:29:30] Jean: All the digging and the things that you do,
[:[00:29:49] Jean: lived in Aurora, and we went to visit them in the summer of 1976.
[:[00:29:57] Jean: So, it was in that town that my mother was [00:30:00] working in, and we didn't know it.
[:[00:30:04] Jean: Of all the
[:[00:30:09] Jean: Yeah. Damn.
[:[00:30:13] Jean: And of course, when I'm cruising in, for the conference I interpret that as being some sort of positive serendipity, but of course that isn't how that played out. I would have been the same. I would have been like, this is a sign. This conference is here in her city.
[:[00:30:31] Jean: go see the human resources department. I'm going to see, and I'm going to tell them the story and all the records will open to me.
[:[00:30:39] Jean: Tell me everything. Right.
[:[00:30:43] Jean: Yeah.
[:[00:31:18] Jean: This is where I'm going to say, thank God for this community. I mean, this community I as you figured out, I'm very recent to all of this.
[:[00:31:46] Jean: And so I was surrounded by friends, to help me in that situation. even as my husband is, reading me this letter, I mean, we're sobbing. He's sobbing, I'm sobbing. We are just so [00:32:00] emotional in that moment. But if I was anywhere other than with him and in his arms, I was in exactly the right place.
[:[00:32:28] Damon: So you're absolutely right. you fell in a soft cloud in terms of being in that moment. That's really unbelievable. Wow.
[:[:
[00:33:09] Damon (2): But that man passed away in 2018, so any chance of meeting him is gone. Jean has also tried to contact family members of his through social media channels. But no one, not even her closest match has responded.
I will say I've got a great third cousin that I've gotten to meet
[:[00:33:35] Damon: I
[:[00:33:42] Jean: really close that deal.
[:[00:34:00] Jean: Yeah. I've let it go for now. I'm focused on other projects which are about to wrap up and then maybe I'll resume. I mean, you know how it is. You have to, people who've been through long searches have told me many times they, sometimes you got to just set it aside for a few years,
[:[00:34:28] Damon: And you go, I needed to just pause and give this thing some space. And so hopefully something will break for you that will allow a little bit more
[:[00:34:42] Damon: sure,
[:[00:34:45] Damon: for sure. Yeah, I can imagine. Wow. Good on your husband for fielding that letter for you trying to figure out like what is my wife about to get into?
[:[00:35:16] Damon: And some people will say things like my adopters, right, which is a clear indication of some level of animosity towards the adoptive situation. But you've said raising parents, which doesn't signal either one favor or disdain. Tell me about the words that you use for your parents.
[:[00:35:38] Jean: I do believe kids need parents. I needed mine, and
[:[00:36:11] Jean: And they were flawed. They also genuinely tried their best. I mean, my mother for all of her screwed up this. For all of that, for all of her trauma I know she loved me, she did her best, and so that's the thing, it's like, they did the job, they raised me, I love them, and I know a great many adoptees feel the same.
[:[00:36:30] Jean: That's right.
[:[00:36:42] Jean: Right. Okay. you can't walk things back 40 years and cast shade on the value system such as they were.
[:[00:37:10] Damon: That's right. Final question for you, Jean. You've talked about your mother's journey to sobriety. . And this was at a time when you were a teenager and you had. You're like, I'm done with it. I don't need this. But as an adult woman, I assume, did she maintain her sobriety? Tell me about your relationship with her as an adult.
[:[00:38:00] Jean: Well, She didn't have a good opportunity And so of course that perpetuated, right? The cycle, right? We talk about trying to break the cycle. And so eventually I went through adult children of alcoholics, which helped me immeasurably because it helps you harness your agency in terms of your own healing and your own journey.
[:[00:38:39] Damon: does. I'm telling you. That was awful.
[:[00:38:43] Damon: My mother had paranoid schizophrenia and dementia.
[:[00:38:47] Jean: Yeah. So, but there was a good 20 years in there where I really got to enjoy a relationship with a woman who I called mom and who I knew adored me and who I adored. And [00:39:00] so that was good. And I'm grateful
[:[00:39:08] Damon: This was really wonderful. I know it was a rough journey and I'm hopeful that one day your birth mother will turn around and say, you know what? I have a child out there that I don't know. And I hold out hope for everybody who finds themselves in these situations because you just never know what is going to eat away at someone's spirit.
[:[00:39:39] Jean: Likewise. Thank you so much, sir.
[:
[00:40:09] Damon (2): But I know it was also incredibly tough to be right there in Denver, where her birth mother lives, and not be granted the opportunity to meet her. However, as Jean said, other than in the arms of her husband, What better place could there have been for her to receive her maternal rejection news than among her friends in the Untangling Our Roots community?
[:[00:40:53] Damon (2): If you would like to share the story of your adoption and your attempt to connect with your biological family, please visit [00:41:00] whoamireallypodcast. com slash share. You can follow me on Instagram at Damon L. Davis and follow the podcast. At W a I really, of course, if you like the show, please take a minute to leave a five star review in your podcast app or wherever you listen.
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