Shownotes
Lena, from just north of Tampa, Florida grew up surrounded by adoptees. However, as she got older, Lena began to feel how different she was. While working toward her degree in social work, Lena's studies unexpectedly led her down the path to reunion. While her birth father has been nothing but supportive, Lena said she can't force a maternal reunion with someone who has not healed yet herself.
This is Lena's journey.
Who Am I Really?
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Transcripts
233 – Coming to a Place of Peace
[:Cold Cut Intro
[:[00:00:20] Lena: I'm not gonna sacrifice my own mental physical spiritual emotional health for someone who's not there. I'm not going to pull someone through or drag someone through or, try and carry them or fix them.
Show Open
[:[00:01:02] Damon: From just north of Tampa, Florida. Lena grew up surrounded by adoptees, but as she got older, she began to feel how different she was while working toward her degree. In social work. Lena's studies unexpectedly led her down the path to reunion. While her birth father has been nothing but supportive. Lena said she can't force a maternal reunion with someone who has not healed yet herself.
[:[00:01:29] Damon: Lena was raised with the positive narrative that she was chosen. And adoption is a positive thing for her and their family. Lena was told she was special. Her family also had friends and family members who also adopted children in long island, New York, where she grew up.
[:[00:01:55] Lena: it was very normal, considering how abnormal I would [00:02:00] feel as I got older, but it was very normalized as a child.
[:[00:02:11] Damon: Yeah, that's really unique, actually, because it's not often that I hear people say that they were surrounded by adoption also, right? That, that they were told about it and they accepted it, but they didn't necessarily know a lot of people around them.
[:[00:02:32] Lena: Yeah, there was at least two, I know, three, there was three families, but at least two that we were very close with, and I was actually the only same race adoptee out of all of those families, like all of the other families that we grew up with had transracial adoptions, different countries, , so it was very cool and some families were blended, like some, one of the families that we knew had biological and adopted children.
[:[00:03:08] Damon: May I ask, given your comfortability with adoption in, in all of its various forms from a younger age, how do you think that impacted how you view the world and accept other people?
[:[00:03:50] Damon: That's really fascinating. Yeah, I could see how it would drive you towards your chosen career path. Right? That's
[:[00:04:11] Lena: Yeah.
[:[00:04:27] Lena: I definitely looked the most like my adoptive family out of all of that crew that I described of, those of us that were together.
[:[00:04:51] Lena: So I, I definitely resembled them enough to be walking down the street and people don't necessarily question it. So I felt similar in the [00:05:00] sense that I didn't feel like I looked different but I definitely felt different just the way I acted, the way I would feel things, the way I experienced things was very different.
[:[00:05:30] Lena: So I got that a little bit. So , that would be like a big difference. And I think I just, the older I got, I just experienced things different. I definitely believe it's nature and nurture, and it's a little bit of both. But I just, as I got a little bit older, started to feel like I don't have the same response.
[:[00:06:00] Damon: Yeah.
[:[00:06:07] Lena: I guess we could both be in the same situation and I have a different reaction than someone else, right? , or we would both be having the same conversation. And I would feel differently after the conversation, like, even when people, describe adoption or describe, my situation, they would, everyone would talk about me and say, Oh, this is wonderful.
[:[00:06:52] Lena: And I would say, oh, yeah, because I was the compliant, people pleaser. And then, but internally, I might, that may not be what I was [00:07:00] actually feeling in that sense. So it was a different experience on my end.
[:[00:07:13] Damon: I can't, do you have other, I had about
[:[00:07:16] Damon: Really say more.
[:[00:07:35] Lena: people or experiences and I, could always get people to work together and I could never figure out why and then I was like, oh, that's because I'm a people pleaser and I can figure out what everybody needs to do to be happy and I can do it and then they're all happy and I brought them all, together in that scenario.
[:[00:08:04] Damon: That is so fascinating. So, yes, definitely
[:I would love to hear about what was your relationship like with your adoptive mother? And then what was your relationship like with? Your adoptive father as well.
[:[00:08:26] Lena: And I was very shy and I was the compliant overachieving had to do everything right. But I, I can't, , I can't say anything negative. Everything was absolutely wonderful. We have wonderful relationships. They were amazing. They always put me first. They were very, loving. I never had any if you were concerned, as I got older, I started to be less shy and and be less clingy to her.
[:[00:09:09] Damon: That's really cool. Yeah. How about with your adoptive father? What was your relationship like with him?
[:[00:09:33] Lena: We're both very easygoing, we both really care about our family. We both would do anything to make anybody in our family happy. So like, I definitely feel like my personality is most like his. And we, butt heads as typical teenagers and, things like that. But it was very, loving, very normal.
[:[00:09:52] Damon: When Lena was in college, she had decided to go to school to be a social worker. She knew she wanted to help people [00:10:00] and Lena even thought she wanted to work in the fields of foster care and adoption. She said she was still in the fog, not realizing what adoption truly meant at a deeper level. Lena admits.
[:[00:11:04] Lena:
[:[00:11:14] Damon: Wow,
[:[00:11:27] Damon: That's incredible.
[:[00:11:39] Damon: That's unbelievable. Wow.
[:[00:11:52] Lena: So oddly enough, I have gaps in my memory because I disassociated through [00:12:00] a lot of those big events when I was young. I don't, I know from what people tell me and I remember pieces of it.
[:[00:12:28] Lena: So I was like, Oh, maybe this isn't right. So I think. At first, I remember thinking it was a wrong connection and then my roommates from college took over because , I obviously couldn't process any of it and so they took over and had kind of started, looking at things and answering and I must have exchanged an email with her at some point, I guess, but then she contacted my biological dad, her brother and then we started exchanging emails from that and The internet was not, I mean, not that it's a great place now, but it [00:13:00] was, it was very unknown then.
[:[00:13:14] Lena: Right. Like
[:[00:13:16] Lena: So, but back then it was very like new and leery. So we were like, well, how do we know that this is the people? And so the moment that I knew was. I don't remember if he emailed it to us or if he told us on the phone, but again, I was my roommates and he read the description of my adoptive parents.
[:[00:13:51] Damon: So the even the de identified description of your adoptive parents, it was really clear.
[:[00:13:57] Lena: percent Yeah, there was no question like [00:14:00] my stomach just dropped and I was like, oh, that's it. There's no there's no way that it's wrong Yeah,
[:[00:14:21] Damon: So I'm looking forward to getting to that piece. But before we get there, tell me more about, this first interact. How did you even get on the phone with him or like, was he doing this through your roommates who were fielding the calls for you? What was the,
[:[00:14:36] Lena: I think from what he tells me now, I think my roommate pretended to be me on the phone to protect me just to make sure that it wasn't like a creep. Like my roommates are awesome. They were very protective of me. They were very invested in my story and my, I must have been scared.
[:[00:15:10] Lena: Like, she, they're like, what, what, if she doesn't know what to do, what are we gonna do? Cause she always knows what to do, so I think they saw me kind of like, unhinged, and they were like, alright, we're gonna take care of her. Which was, very sweet, and I'm friends with some of them still to this day.
[:[00:15:39] Damon: So you don't remember speaking with him at all?
[:[00:15:59] Lena: Experience.
[:[00:16:18] Damon: She doesn't know I'm coming. It's her birthday coincidentally, and I'm totally emotional, like burst out in tears when I see her for the first time. And we went out to lunch and I've often said. I wish I could tell you I hung on every word she said. I don't remember a single thing we talked about. Not a word.
[:[00:16:44] Lena: Yeah. I remember reading that in your book too. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this is so fast. How do you have time to like, make sense of all of that? Yeah.
[:[00:17:02] Damon: It's just unreal.
[:[00:17:21] na: Yeah,
[:[00:17:44] Lena: I do remember this and actually I haven't remembered this in years. Just to see if maybe they can give me other non identifying information that would confirm, what I was, what they were telling me from the adoption. com website. Again, just wanting to be ultra safe and making sure that I wasn't, connecting [00:18:00] with random strangers that were not, part of my story or my family tree and they sent back a letter or they called me back and said which I now know thanks to podcasts and books.
[:[00:18:19] Damon: Mm hmm. There have been more fires and floods in the adoption community than in any other community on the planet.
[:[00:18:28] Lena: I had no idea. Like, I was like, oh, that's so horrible. Like, how How horrible of a, situation that this all burned down and it's just my luck and I literally had no idea until I entered the adoption community and started listening to podcasts like yours or reading memoirs and go, Oh my gosh, there's burned down in a fire too.
[:[00:18:57] Damon: And that's one of the interesting things about where we're [00:19:00] coming from. We're searching for truth. And so we have to take whatever people give us.
[:[00:19:24] Damon: You've never been through it before. It's not like buying a car where you can be like, well, the last time I was at the dealership, you know what I'm saying? You just don't have that frame of reference. So, I think a lot of adoptees do get duped through that piece of understanding that, they just don't want to tell you.
[:[00:19:49] Lena: them to tell you that it got, it got destroyed in a fire.
[:[00:20:00] Damon: I want to just clarify something really fast. Was adoption. com the only method that you utilize to try to initiate your search?
[:[00:20:19] Lena: And then, and that's how it all went through there. I didn't contact the adoption agency until after. They had found me or we had connected because I was trying to confirm, the connection or see if I could get information that would back that up.
[:[00:20:37] Damon: That's incredible.
[:[00:21:10] Lena: and I remember, , just this. feeling I had never felt before. Like it was, it was just incredible to feel it. And I was so moved. But do I know what it says? No, did I? Like, I don't remember any of that, but I remember the feeling. So I was like, hey, at least, at least I had the feeling. , I'm getting better than forgetting the entire situation.
[:[00:21:51] Damon: So she did most of the driving. When Lena was finally able to go to sleep and let someone else take the wheel. She woke up in [00:22:00] Virginia at the dreaded interstate 95 exchange that we locals refer to as the mixing bowl. For the uninitiated driving on this highway Without the voice.
[:[00:22:17] Lena: So
[:[00:22:31] Lena: So that was hysterical. That was, that was the core memory of the trip. And I do remember, and I still see the building now when I go, we stopped at a, it was an Eckerd drugstore because we had driven through the night, like no hotel. We were broke college students. So we said just gas and food and we're going, and we had driven through the night and we got to this like Eckerd drugstore on the edge of town.
[:[00:23:01] na: Yeah, exactly.
[:[00:23:12] Lena: So I remember that. And then I remember pulling into the, to his house, but then the rest of that was kind of a blur.
[:[00:23:25] Lena: I think I was mostly nervous and anxious. That was my main set of emotions for the first, probably, 30 years of my life.
[:[00:23:49] Lena: So,
[:[00:24:05] Lena: I, yeah, I know he, he, what, he came out, they have like a deck on the back.
[:[00:25:18] Lena: So, we got to pick up my siblings from school. So I got in the car, and we, like, Like, two cars. It took two carloads of people to go pick up my siblings from school so that I could meet them. And that was, like, that part I remember. And we have a picture of, like, my first hug with my brother and my sister.
[:[00:25:50] Damon: That's really cool. Cause yeah, that is a very fulfilling thing. This is something you've wanted since you were a young person. And now here you are older college age and you get [00:26:00] to actually have the siblings that you've longed for. That's incredible.
[:[00:26:08] Damon: You were a surprise to them. Do you know?
[:[00:26:22] Damon: Wow. That's amazing. Huh. That's really cool. What a wonderful scene. That must've been so cool for you to stand there.
[:[00:26:31] Lena: middle school. They were very excited. It was, yeah, definitely the coolest moment.
[:[00:26:49] Lena: So I think the first like years I really was focusing on the kids and I didn't. , I felt conflicted. I have parents and I didn't [00:27:00] understand, like, where he fit in in my story. And so, a lot of it was for the kids. I remember always sharing stuff with him , and telling stuff, but I didn't, I felt uncomfortable trying to figure out where he felt fit in my puzzle.
[:[00:27:46] Lena: So now this is 22 years later. Yeah, we think alike we have very similar brains. We joke that like from the top half up, , I'm their side of the family. Like you can see like my nose and my ears and [00:28:00] my. We definitely have similar eyes.
[:[00:28:16] Lena: Yes. And I never had that experience, for the first 20 something years. So. It was really cool.
[:[00:28:40] Lena: I, I guess I just saw the difference in the sense of Things started to click and I realized, oh, well, that's why, you know, I didn't think that way. I didn't act that way. and maybe it was my perspective changed in the sense of I started to notice the differences more and I started to notice that that's not how I would do something or how I would [00:29:00] react or even the way you think, that kind of thing, like some of those things turn out to be nature, not nurture, so it was just more prominent.
[:[00:29:28] Lena: Like I felt like I didn't fit in. Maybe I did, but I just didn't feel like I did. I. I felt accepted and loved. I just felt different in that sense.
[:[00:29:50] Damon: What was the situation that they conveyed to you?
[:[00:30:10] Lena: Like there was, it was very caring. They cared about each other. They cared about me. But their families were both going through things that, like neither of them were able to support them, to raise a child at that time. And, and I'm assuming. That it was kind of pressured in that sense to place a baby for adoption at that point, but I, it wasn't that they didn't want to, it was just that they couldn't at the time.
[:[00:30:45] Damon: I gotcha. And is it your understanding that they wanted to keep you?
[:[00:30:58] Lena: it. It just wasn't okay, [00:31:00]
[:[00:31:19] Damon: So Lena sat down to craft her thoughts into how she wanted to introduce herself.
[:[00:31:25] Lena: wrote
[:[00:31:47] Damon: So you sent it to him, he sent it to her, and he sent it to her.
[:[00:31:53] Damon: Wow. And how long did that go on for?
[:[00:31:58] Damon: [00:32:00] Really? So, did you ask him about her periodically throughout? Like, hey, have you heard anything? Like, I know you probably didn't want to pressure him about her, but he was your conduit to her.
[:[00:32:11] Lena: Right, right. So, he, he reached out to her via phone, I believe, once to try You know, say, hey, did you get the letter? Blah, blah, blah. And she, said, I can't talk to you, whatever, and ended the call, from my understanding. And then she used to send Christmas cards to my biological aunt.
[:[00:32:43] Damon: So she
[:[00:33:01] Lena: And then it was, it was really cool. I remember one trip, I was up there and the, he took me to one of their friend's houses and they had like old photo albums and the, his friend actually gave me one of the pictures that, that was, she was in it because that's all I have. I have nothing except, a couple photos from, What they've given me, like he had some photos, his mom had some photos, and then his friend had a photo that they gave me, so that was really cool to have, something, some glimpse of my history.
[:[00:33:31] Lena: Yes, there is like a prom photo where she's like laughing and the side of her head, like her side profile. That was the creepiest thing to me, like in the sense of like, Oh my gosh, I've seen that expression on my own face in pictures.
[:[00:33:46] Damon: Mm hmm. Very good. Wow. So you said for 17 years, you didn't hear anything. Did anything ever change in terms of trying to actually make a connection to her? Mm hmm.
[:[00:34:09] Lena: And my youngest brother who had been eight when I met him was now in his 20s and he was diagnosed with lymphoma and he went through almost four years of treatments and, and medical issues and then. In the end, he ended up passing in 2018 from all of the complications in the lymphoma that they couldn't get into remission.
[:[00:34:53] Lena: And it was the most wonderful thing. He's the uncle to my children. My children know him. My kids don't know life without their uncle. [00:35:00] What if there's, what if something like that was to happen on the other side of the family? Like that I never even had a chance to even just say hello. So by this time it's 2019, 2020.
[:[00:35:35] Lena: And so, during the pandemic and spending plenty of time at home, I started reading, I started doing podcasts, I started listening to podcasts, I started going on social media a little bit in the adoptee community and trying to figure out like, how can I help heal myself, and that's when I really felt like I was coming out of the fog and realizing all of these things.
[:[00:36:14] Lena: It's been 17 years. I wonder if she's in a different place or she's more willing to. Talk to me now and he was a hundred percent supportive and that really helped that was a big deal for me because I know that like he's the only one who knows her Right, like he said he's the link to her and so I didn't want to do something that was inappropriate or he didn't think was Okay.
[:[00:36:54] Lena: 19 and, just wanting to be accepted. And so, send a message saying, Hey, [00:37:00] I just wanted to check in, let you know I'm here. I'm still interested in having a conversation with you if you were ever open to it, at whatever comfort level. works for you, right? I wasn't asking for a family reunion kind of thing.
[:[00:37:40] Lena: And so about three days, four days later, my message was deleted and I was blocked from her social media account.
[:[00:37:52] Lena: I, it was, it was tough. I think I was a little bit more prepared than I was the first time, but I was [00:38:00] angry. You know all of the grief emotions because really a lot of it is grief and loss right loss of something that you can't have or you'll never have a Connection a relationship even a conversation, right?
[:[00:38:15] Damon: Yeah, wow. Did you, did he, your birth father, did your birth father ever get a chance to chat with her, even for a moment?
[:[00:38:30] Lena: No.
[:[00:38:44] Damon: how are you doing now then?
[:[00:39:12] Lena: My family is good. Like life is good. I have a great career and I realized I don't You Need someone that's gonna drain me or that's not ready to enter into that space or that conversation I couldn't support her if she was going through Something that she couldn't handle like I can't enter in reunion with someone who's not healed who's not doing well I can't help someone else.
[:[00:39:52] Lena: And if she's ever in that place, clearly she knows where to find me. , there's plenty of ways to find me now. So I feel [00:40:00] like I'm good. I don't need something in my life. That's going to just cause more issues than bring me peace. Like if, if she can't be in a place where she's going to help bring me peace, then , I'm not interested right now.
[:[00:40:33] Damon: It is your life Absolutely, and I suspect that yeah, there would be a lot of healing that she could get from opening the door and allowing herself to feel the feels and, , touch on all of these things that she's been through in the past and, allow them to heal. But you're absolutely right.
[:[00:41:05] Damon: And,
[:[00:41:06] Damon: And I would love for more adoptees to think this through in terms of the external validation that we feel like we need from other people. I recognize that maternal bond is crazy important, but also, , nobody's gonna love you more than you. So you have to focus on yourself first. You can't be in reunion with somebody else in a healthy way if you haven't gotten yourself right.
[:[00:41:39] Lena: Yeah, and I mean, we deserve that. It's we didn't none of us asked to be in this situation, right? We just existed and now we're kind of left to deal with this, right?
[:[00:42:10] Lena: And yes, I'm absolutely willing to talk, willing to give her peace if she's in that place, but I can't also be the one who helps her heal. Like, she needs to do that work herself.
[:[00:42:32] Damon: You And I'm doing some writing now and you said something along the lines of , none of us asked for this situation , and that is a validation of something else that I'm working on right now. So I'm really glad to hear you use those words because that's another element of what I've been thinking through is not a single one of the adoptees that I know asked for the adoption situation that we find ourselves in.
[:[00:43:18] Damon: None of us asked for this situation. So thank you for validating that for me. Lena, this has been amazing. I'm so glad that you're in a good space. I'm glad that you were able to find your biological father and that they found you and that it was so easy and that it was an accident. I mean, it just is absolutely incredible.
[:[00:43:45] Lena: Yeah. And thanks for doing this. I, I mean, listening to your episodes and other episodes and, books and, all that have really helped me.
[:[00:44:01] Damon: Fantastic. You're part of the healing fabric now too. So thank you again. Take care. All the best to you. Okay.
[:[00:44:09] Lena: Bye bye.
[:
Closing
[:[00:44:43] Damon: And it was unique that she reunited with her paternal side first. I loved that her college roommates were so protective of Lena and her birth father was so glad to have found her. Publicly stated his joy on his webpage and fell to his knees. When she appeared [00:45:00] before him at his house. I know it has been really hard that her birth mother won't acknowledge her.
[:[00:46:05] Damon: Really? podcast.com/share. If you are taking anything meaningful from the show, please take a moment to leave a five star review in your podcast app or wherever you listen. While you're there. Leave a comment to, I read them all and they helped me understand how the stories of other adoptees are helping the community. Your ratings and comments, help the algorithm to share the, who am I really podcast with others who may appreciate the show, the way you do.
[:[00:46:35] Damon: I'm working on another book that I'll share more about as my writing continues.
