Category: Adoptee Loss

The Essence of My Biological Parents and My Adoptive Parents Being Deceased – An Adoptees Perspective

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova10 Comments

The Essence of My Biological Parents and My Adoptive Parents Being Deceased – An Adoptees Perspective by Pamela A. Karanova

For years now, I have had strained or missing relationships with all of my adoptive parents and my biological parents. But, in the last twelve years, they have all passed away one by one—four people with whom I had four unusual or missing relationships.

Two of them passed away in the last six months.

As a result, my obsession with trolling for obituaries on Google has concluded. I won’t miss it because, like closed adoption, it’s torture and agonizing.

How would you feel if the only way you might learn of your parent’s or family members passing was by conducting Google searches weekly or sometimes daily looking for obituaries? What if this went on for years or even a lifetime?

How many of my fellow adoptees have found themselves doing this?

How does it make you feel?

I always knew this day would come when my biological parents and adoptive parents, aka my parents on paper, would all be gone. Thankfully, I did gain notification of each of the deaths by way of social media or direct contact but that doesn’t change the reality that Google has been my #1 search engine in hopes of learning about the deaths of all of my parents.

But unfortunately, I recently learned my adoptive dad passed away on 1/3/23, and I struggle to find the emotions I should have about his passing. We hadn’t communicated in several years. The sadness I feel doesn’t feel new, I have felt this loss every day. Yet, I haven’t shared his passing with anyone but very few people. So let me also share that my biological father also passed away a little less than six months ago on 6/21/22. I still have yet to scratch the surface on processing his passing away. I have enormous feelings about the obituaries for each of these people, but I will save them for another article.

One of these men took a small part in raising me, and the other took every part in creating me. Equally, from the world’s description, they should have been my fathers, but the description of strangers is more true-to-life.

So how do I have a chance at two fathers yet feel like they are essential strangers? Welcome to the torture of adoption, the one that splits family trees apart and separates and divides. The one that creates lifelong consequential emotional and mental torment for the adopted child that grows up.

I have the same experience with both of my mothers. One took part in raising and traumatizing me; the other took part in creating me and her choice for my life and being separated from her traumatized me at the very beginning of my life.

I describe my adoptive parents as my parents on paper or my paper parents. Here’s why. They signed the adoption paperwork, and I did not. My life was estranged from both of them before they passed away for many reasons I will not discuss in this article but what I will say is that I feel like I was forced to make a choice.

With that choice, I picked myself. Unfortunately, I have been put in a situation because of the split adoption creates where I had to make this conclusion, and I regret it enormously. Most non-adoptees don’t comprehend what I even mean.

Well, let me be frank – when I was born in the adoption paradox at no choice of my own, I have always felt this internal tug-of-war being tugged in a million different directions. It’s felt like a split in the core of my being, and then from those two splits, there are more splits and more and more, and the splits go on forever, yet I can’t fully claim any side as mine.

Some may see it as a larger-than-life, full-of-love family tree. But I see it as a tree with no growing roots, replaced by severed roots that are chopped up all over the ground and left for dead.

I am the dead roots, trying to come alive, all alone. Still, because of all the emotions and deep-rooted feelings that resurface over and over, it’s almost impossible to feel planted or to grow with all these different people and families from all over the place.

Two sets, maternal and paternal, represent a DNA connection, and the other two, my adoptive parents, represent shared history. They are equally part of me, but I am forced to keep them separate. I fucking hate it because it always feels like I’m hiding half of myself to protect the other side. I have to watch what I say, and I have to watch what I do. And I damn sure can never share MY STORY because of the fear of pissing both sides off.

I have always felt like tremendous missing links have created a wedge between all my parents and me, and I genuinely believe ADOPTION is the root cause. I have no shared history with my biological parents and no shared DNA with my adoptive aka paper parents. I have always felt ripped into a million pieces between these two worlds. I have never felt like I belong in either of them.

Because of 45+ years of trying to shake this reality off, the sooner I acknowledged my adoptee pain was here to stay, the sooner things got more manageable for me. But in this self-reflection process, I also acknowledged I had to walk away from everyone to save myself.

This is something only a very minimal number of adoptees can do. Taking the first step towards freedom took strength and courage, but it didn’t come without a cost.

It was the hardest thing I ever did.

It cost me everything to choose myself.

EVERYTHING.

But at least now I have myself, even if I feel like I am in shambles half the time.

When others lose a parent, I see people grieving, crying on social media about the loss, and having loved ones surround them with care and concern. I see meal trains and flowers delivered. I see people take off work to grieve the life-changing loss and to take suitable time to grieve the loss. I see the world have compassion for someone when they lose a parent, not to mention losing two parents in a short period.

I don’t see the same thing for adopted people, especially when we mention we had no relationship or estranged relationships with our adopters or biological parents. It’s almost as if the world shrugs its shoulders and says to itself, “Well, you didn’t know them, so what’s the big deal?” or better yet, “You chose not to have a relationship with them,” so it’s your fault. It’s a miracle if we are contacted at all.

No matter how hard we try or what we do, we’re always outsiders looking in – especially to the immediate adoptive or biological relatives because, let’s never forget, blood is always thicker than water. In my case, and many other adoptees, blood will also toss you to the wolves in the name of “Brave Love.” Even more so if you have no shared history.

In reality, the loss of these individuals hurts and hurts profoundly. However, as an adoptee, I can share that my grief for each person is not due to what was but rather what wasn’t. Every day of my life, I have cried inside at the loss of my biological mother and the loss of the woman I wished my adoptive mom was.

I have also cried inside at losing the connection with my biological father and the relationship I always wished I had with my adoptive dad. But unfortunately, these deep relationships never existed, so I have cried every day as if each of these people died daily because, essentially, I felt like they did.

But, instead of shedding external tears of sadness for what was lost with each of them, I have shed internal tears that ebb and flow as life passes me by every day of my life.

This isn’t new; it’s been a lifelong journey.

The two biological parents I sincerely spent a lifetime desiring to find, meet and get to know slammed the door in my face once located. I have yet to experience any more tremendous pain in this lifetime than the pain of this disappointment followed by grief, loss, abandonment, and rejection that will never entirely go away.

Unfortunately, the two who paid a cash price in exchange for being parents, who signed the dotted line, weren’t capable of being parents. My adoptive dad knew my adoptive mother was mentally unstable, yet he adopted two daughters and abandoned us a year later, divorced her, and left. He moved over an hour away, remarried, and raised her three sons as his own.

I get it.

He chose to save himself as I did.

I can’t tell you one lesson my adoptive dad taught me over my lifetime. He was always far away, and it impacted any relationship we might have had. I remember him saying, “If you’re happy, I’m happy,” which has been the extent of anything I have retained that could be a “lesson” he taught me. I don’t know anything about him other than he worked at John Deere, where he retired. While I am waiting patiently on his obituary to be published, I am confident I will find out more about him in his obituary than what I knew in my 48 years of him being my parent on paper.

I almost got up enough nerve about 8-9 years ago to reach out to him and ask him if he could come to Kentucky for a weekend, so I could get to know him while we planned a father/daughter visit. I was hoping that one time in my life, I could spend even one hour with him alone to get to know him one-on-one. This is something I have never experienced nor do I have any father/daughter memories to hang onto. But then, one day, I woke up and reevaluated all my relationships and acknowledged the reality that I have visited Iowa dozens of times over the years. As a result, I accepted that my adoptive dad had visited Kentucky 3 times in over 30 years.

I have never spent one hour with my adoptive dad, just him and me ever, in my whole life. So it’s hard for me to look at him like a father. I can see why the other people in his life have that experience with him; however, I don’t. Because of his choice to leave me with my adoptive mom, my childhood was robbed and stolen. Here’s an article on what it was like growing up with her. – The Narcissistic Adoptive Mom.

Not long after I turned 17, my adoptive mom moved me across the country, away from everyone. I never got along with my adoptive mom. We were like oil and vinegar. Because of this, I have felt entirely alone in the family area my whole life until I had my kids, who are all adults now.

So many memories with my biological family have been robbed because of adoption, and so much time has been lost, never to return. Reminiscing upon my life story, one of the most valuable things to me is time and what I can do with it. I hold high importance on making memories with those I love with the time I have left on this earth.

Adoption is a coverup for the most tremendous loss of someone’s life. It glosses over the loss before an adoption takes place with a shiny, sparkly coat that shines for all to see. But the reality is adoption is the ring leader of counterfeit and forged connections and not every adoptee benefits from it or bonds with their adopters.

I thank adoption because it’s the gift that keeps on giving; to me, it feels like death all by itself. It’s the queen of separation and the king of the division of families. It’s the ruler of grief, loss, anger, rage, abandonment, and rejection. It’s the monarch of a lifetime of pain that never goes away, rooted in secrecy, lies, and half-truths.

While I have stepped into a space of acknowledging that all my parents are gone because of the separation and division that adoption causes, I have never felt like they were here to begin with. This isn’t new because they have all left the earth; it’s been this way since the beginning.

I think my grief is heightened because this is it. Any small glimmer of hope something will change or be different is dead and gone with all the people with whom I should have the closest relationships.

“You chose to walk away from everyone,” says the world.

Yes, yes, I did.

But I should have never felt like I had to make that decision, to begin with. Unless you are adopted and forced to walk this tightrope, you have no idea how it feels. The split is too painful for me, and I give up on it.

But make no mistake, giving up still comes with a lifetime of anguish about what should have been, could have been, and what was robbed because of adoption and relinquishment.

My adoptive and biological parents are all deceased; however, adoption’s revolting and heartbreaking consequences are still felt for generations. I have no idea where to start processing my pain, but writing this article is a first step for me.

For my fellow adoptees, does this article resonate with you at all?

How do you think adoption has impacted your relationships with your adoptive parents and biological parents?

If they have passed away, how have you processed the loss?

I’ve created a comprehensive list of recommended resources for adult adoptees and adoption advocates!

Thank you for reading,

Love, Love

Pamela A. Karanova

Don’t forget this article, along with all my other articles, are available in audio for your convenience; look up Pamela A. Karanova Podcast on Google Podcasts, iTunes, and Spotify. And Amazon Music. Interested in treating me to a coffee to add fuel to my fire? Click here. Many thanks in advance to my supporters!

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article and podcast are that of the author, Pamela A. Karanova. Reproduction of the material contained in this publication may be made only with the written permission of Pamela A. Karanova. While it is Pamela’s hope that you find the information in her website useful and informative please note- the information contained in this website is for general information purposes only. The information is provided by Pamela A. Karanova with the goal of having the information up-to-date and correct; she makes no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the resources list on the website or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained on the resources listed on her website. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk. Through this website you are able to link to other websites which are not under the control of Pamela A. Karanova. She has no control over the nature, content and availability of those sites. The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.

100 Heartfelt Transracial Adoptee Quotes that Honor the Truth of Adoption

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova5 Comments

You have come to the right place if you are looking for the best adoption quotes from the transracial adoptee’s perspective. This article shares 100 Heartfelt Transracial Adoptee Quotes that Honor’s the Truth of Adoption from the transracial adult adoptee perspective.

As we end 2022, I decided to call my fellow adoptees to help collaborate and share quotes from the heart, reflecting the voices almost always overlooked in the adoption constellation. So, 100 transracial adoptees came together to capture some of the feelings and experiences that transracial adoptees go through during their lifetimes.

While you read these quotes, we ask you to remain with an open heart and mind and enter the possibility that we all have a lot to learn from one another. We must recognize that adopted children grow up, reach adulthood, and consume the rollercoaster journey that adoption brings. They are mothers, fathers, sisters, cousins, doctors, nurses, teachers, public speakers, advocates, writers, authors, D.J’s, lawyers, homemakers, students, etc. As transracial adoptees grow up, they host lifelong experiences, and every experience holds value to their lives and stories.

By sharing 100 Transracial Adoptee Quotes with the world, we hope that a new level of awareness will arise that there is so much more to transracial adoption than what society recognizes. Maybe perhaps love isn’t enough or a house full of stuff? Perhaps we should start talking about relinquishment trauma as soon as possible? Maybe adoption hurts more than we would ever know?

Again, we ask for open hearts and open minds.

Thank you to each transracial adoptee who shared their heart here. While you read this article, you will receive validation that you are not alone. We’re in this together, and our voices are valuable and worthy.

We are stronger together.

100 Transracial Adoptee Quotes

  1. “My fundamental outlook on human relationships is: if the person who brought me into this world can abandon me, anyone can. I have inadvertently become an island, trusting no one, grounded by no significant human connections. The word ‘love’ is meaningless to me because it was conflated with abandonment and abuse. I should not know these feelings.” – B. Birch
  1. “The way I see it, transracial adoption is human trafficking and the theft of children from the people the world sees as unworthy of raising their own children. I was not adopted, I was stolen.“ – Elli Mariyama Manneh 
  1. “As a transracial adoptee, your experiences with racism, self-identity, grief, etc., are all unique to yourself, which creates an immense sense of loneliness. Parents of transracial adoptees must know that their child will go through many obstacles they will NOT understand. But it is important to recognize this and always support the best you can!” – Miguel Jones 
  1. “I used to pray every night that I’d wake up and be white so I looked like I belonged with the family I was with.” – C.C.
  1. “As a TRA, it feels like I culturally appropriate my very own culture whenever I wear or use original clothes, jewelry, accessories, and products from my people. I feel like a total fraud, an imposter that doesn’t belong anywhere.” — Jennifer Elise Teer, IG @PiecieLove
  1. “I am a Korean adoptee, brought to Oklahoma in 1982. Becoming a mother changed everything for me. I am convinced, now more than ever, that regardless of the circumstances surrounding my relinquishment, my birth mother still thinks of me from time to time after all these years. There’s no way she does not find herself wondering about the woman I’ve become.” – Jennifer H-P
  1. “Dear Adopters, The only reason you were able to adopt me is because society failed my mother and forced her to make a decision she shouldn’t have had to make in the first place. Not yours truly.” – Kris 
  1. “Being a transracial adoptee feels like I was set on fire, and everyone around me was ok with the fire because it kept them warm. They all got what they wanted while they watched me burn. The worst part is they expect me to be grateful for burning.” – Amanda B.
  1. “I grew up thinking I was white.” – Omaira Avila
  1. “Mirrors are a strange companion when no one else reflects you. People and family make it clear, so all you can do is look back at yourself.” – Nikolay Arthur 
  1. “Learning in my late 40’s about my Peruvian ancestry, I have referred to myself as a ‘reluctant latina.’  I honestly have no idea what an ‘authentic Latina feels like, nor have I ever experienced the culture of my father’s people.” – Lynn Grubb
  1. “Growing up, I wondered who my birth parents were for many reasons. I wanted to know where my physical features came from but also what kind of people they were. I believed if they were good, loving, and smart, that would mean I was. I didn’t believe I could identify who I was until I knew where I came from.” – Jen Capeless 
  1. “Love is colorblind, or so they said! Adoption into a colour not your own is beautiful…on the surface for the White Saviour who rescues you. When you find your biology, you truly understand being Black on the outside yet white on the inside. As a transracial adoptee, it’s like straddling two cultures yet fitting wholly in neither.” – blacksheep1969 
  1. “It’s illegal to change the identifiable information on your car. Individuals can be fined $10,000  or jailed for up to 5 years for changing the VIN, and nobody bats an eye when the name and date of birth is changed on a birth certificate for an adoptee.”
  • “For every highlighted war hero, there are a thousand more that suffer in silence with the traumas of war. PTSD is the hidden scars of war. Adoption is very similar to the military, where only the positive narratives are highlighted as many more suffer from guilt (being adopted as others are not), suffer from shame (unable to share their abuse), and fear (as they deal with separation anxiety).”
  •   “It’s incomprehensible to me how it’s illegal to sell human organs for profit, but the wholesale of the entire person through adoption is justified by our society.” 
  • “If adoption were a drug, then the evidence of its efficacy would have pulled it off the shelf many decades ago.”
  •   “Adoptions vary like the weather. For every sunny outcome, there is an equal negative, destructive tornado of an outcome that has destroyed either a child, biological mother and/or adoptive family. Therefore, we need to honor all adoption narratives, both positive and bad.”
  • “It’s estimated that nearly 60,000 intercountry adoptees reside in America without citizenship, and roughly 60-70% of domestic adoptions have open records. Adoption laws have made great strides in recent years but so much more needs to be done for every adoptee to have the same rights as a non-adoptee. Of the nearly Seven million adoptions in the United States, it affects almost 1/3 or 100 million Americans face adoption in their immediate family (includes adopting, placing a child for adoption or being adopted.” – Jayme K. Hansen
  1. “As a transracial adoptee, I lost my first family, my first culture, my first language—all gone before I even knew I had it. The journey to reclaim them has been long and arduous, and I might never get the answers I want or need. But I will carry on, both for myself and this community.” – Patrick Armstrong 
  1. “Having to justify my experiences and realities to the most familiar strangers, fighting to be seen and heard, to two different worlds that I seamlessly exist in, is the most exhausting experience to navigate.” – Vanessa Pacheco 
  1. “My parents did an amazing job for the ’80s, and I was always connected with my bio family.  I had a healthy racial identity as black, but you still miss out on some aspects of your culture. However, you learn that no matter how aware your adoptive family is with transracial adoption, they simply can’t grasp living firsthand with racism. At times, they can even use microaggressions without being aware – being an overall positive experience doesn’t negate the challenges. When it comes to transracial adoption, you’re at the mercy of people around you. “Where’d you get them colored kids?” Being “othered” in a space that’s still your own family, it’s a weird complexity. Hair insecurity, trying to find a seat at a table, I’m tolerated but not actually included.” – Silver
  1. “I grew up thinking that if I denied my culture and sounded white, people would accept me more.” – Marta Aranda 
  1. “Being nonwhite, raised by a white family in a white community, has given me a near pervasive feeling of triblessness.  It is communicated in various ways that you are not white but also that you are not of our racial background, especially if you are from a relatively segregated place.  Identity is a constant question.  One of the advantages though is that we get to create our own identities and stories, which is both a privilege and burden that few except us can know.” – Andrew Glynn 
  1. “The truth of the matter is that my parents were told that my race was not a factor in how I was to be raised, but race does matter when you are one of the only people of color in your community. Race does matter when you get racially profiled at a store, when someone at work is micro-aggressive, and when kids at school tell you that your skin is ugly and dirty and that you matter less because of it. I struggle to claim my identity as a Latinx person to this day, and I never learned the tools of how to cope with my racially based hate from my family. I used unhealthy coping mechanisms to “stay alive” barely, but luckily, thanks to the online adoptee community, sobriety, and therapy, I am learning how to love myself, brown skin and all.” – Joe Toolan 
  1. “Being adopted into a transracial family did not protect me from racism or micro-aggression or being fetishized. I’ve learned that Adoptees might get to experience their birth culture, but they will always experience people’s perceptions of their race and culture.” – Cosette Eisenhauer 
  1. “It has taken me years to allow myself to feel angry about my experience as a transracial adoptee raised by a white parent. I want to tell my younger self that my feelings are valid and my circumstances are nuanced. I encourage them (my younger self) to seek those who will provide space to be your full self. You are not too much.” – Anica Falcone – Juengert 
  1. “I never feel as invisible as when someone asks me “Do YOU experience racism here?” – Hasina Helena, A transracial adoptee who is from India but resides in Sweden. 
  1. “As an International Adoptee, my journey is not exactly the same as that of Transracial Adoptees; however, there are a few intersections. It is from that perspective that I share this feedback. As an Afro-German child growing up in a family that was rife with racial microaggressions was difficult. Clearly, the only way for me to be comfortable in the midst of these conversations was to consistently deny my bio mom’s ethnicity and the European part of my own. There was absolutely no inclusion, exposure, or discussion of German culture.  There were 25 years between the year that I learned I was adopted and the year that I finally met relatives that looked just like me. Having no familial mirror was very difficult for me. I was expected to sink or swim prior to that moment. Upon my reunion with my first family, my adoptive parents admitted that they knew my biological family all along. WTF!?  It changed everything for me and my connection to them. However unconscionable, it was also the defining moment that made me choose to be the one to not spoon-feed generational trauma to my own children.” – Jacquelin Taybron 
  1. “In my experience as a TRA, I was often shamed for wanting to know more about my birth family. When I did ask about them, I was told I was selfish, and I was dismissed about wanting to learn more about my culture. I was once told that I can be black but not too black.” – IG @thespeckledadoptee 
  1. “Being a transracial adoptee, it’s living with the fear your physical features could condition the way others will treat you.” – Maria Daozheng 
  1. “We, as the transracial, as the mixed, as the adopted, exist beyond the outer bounds of language, where your words have no meaning, where we laugh at your categories and borders and contradictions. Beyond the safety of your understanding, beyond the limits of your imagination. What power we must hold, then, as to exist beyond this imagination is to know that a better world beyond this one exists, not only in the future but here and now. And that what we create, becomes.” – Yohanyy Torres | Andrew Drinkwater
  1. “Being a transracial adoptee makes us a double minority – both racially and biologically. The world is seen through a lens that is very different than most people. Patience, a sense of empathy, and listening from people who understand we think differently are essential to an adoptee’s ability to thrive. We need this to embrace that we matter; that different is good and that we deserve to be heard, even though we know most cannot and will not ever truly understand from our perspective.” – Maria Gatz 
  1. “Adoptees don’t always know exactly what they’re going through. They not only need patience from others but also with themselves. If you are close with an adoptee, be patient with them and learn from them. You never know what is adoption-related trauma and what is part of being human.” – Zoe Seymore
  1. “Adoption did give me a very different life for which I am extremely grateful.  In retrospect, there was still a good deal missing. Discovering the transracial element of my pre-adoption life has added immensely to the richness of my life. It’s really unfortunate in so many ways that it had to be kept secret. I just wish I had found out sooner.” – Jack Rocco  
  1. “I’ve never felt as a TRA that there was a space for me since I knew my birth parents, but I felt so much of the distance from them that I might as well have not. Maybe there is so much vastness and space and language that is not yet created by us and for us as adoptees to claim for ourselves since so many decisions were made for us. After all, our experiences are our own.” – Oumou Cisse 
  1. “My parents say that they just see me as ‘their kid’ while still letting friends of the family and/or relatives say some pretty racist stuff to me when I was growing up. I’m 26 now, and I just realize how not okay that all was.” – Grace R. 
  1. “I constantly felt like I was sticking out among family & friends, I forgot how comforting it can be to have friends that look like you. Being a transracial adoptee is such a unique experience, so unique that at times it feels almost isolating.” – Julie M. 
  1. “Growing up Asian in predominantly white communities, I didn’t understand the importance of representation until I saw myself being represented. With that comes questions, confusion, and pain surrounding racial and cultural belonging.” – Phoebe M. 
  1. “I feel like I don’t fit. Anywhere. Not in my current family…they’re too white. Not in my first family…they’re a world away. I’ve accepted that I’ll never fit. Anywhere.” – Sara G.
  1. “Alienation. Wherever I turned, I was constantly reminded that I did not fit the society around me. I am a Latina, but I have no connection to that culture. I grew up white, but I absolutely do not look like it. Alienation wherever I looked.” – Carmen C.
  1. “For me, trans-racial adoption feels like a constant journey through an identity crisis- a never-ending cycle of grieving, shedding, discovering, losing, gaining, analyzing, & understanding.” – Lauren Castillo
  1. “Being a transracial adoptee means living a life of being misunderstood while also being surrounded by assumptions made by others of your own life. It also means never fitting in anywhere, except for maybe the home you make yourself.” – Alexis Bartlett
  1. “My white adoptive mom once told me that she believed in nurture over nature until I started exploring my black identity and “acting culturally black.” I still live with the fact that my mom adopted me with the belief that she could love the black out of me. It continues to break my heart, more than thirty years later.” – Dr. Abby Hasberry
  1. “You are stronger than your shadows. Sure there has been major upheaval in our life. I was 26 when I was half told I was even trafficked or adopted. All a bit shady, but I know who I am because I spent my life being me and built myself up one day at a time. Hard days? Yes. Gamut of terrible feelings? Of course, racist attacks, obviously from within my family and not, BUT only if you allow externalities define you does it transform you. Do it yourself, you’ll be happier and less upset. Ciao. Iranian adoptee to an Italian family, raised in Canada.” – Flavia Nasrin Testa
  1. “I grew up thinking I was a fraud. Not enough of anything, but always too much. I was told I was no different, so what I was feeling could not be true. There is a hollowness to my sense of self that will always be there.” – I Used to Be Sam
  1. “As a transracial adoptee adult, who was raised with the “colorblind” worldview, I was dangerously unprepared for college, city life, and the world. Leaving for college, I vividly remember being convinced racism was not real. As an adult, navigating Blackness, Whiteness, racism, and discrimination for the first time without the “cloak of (white) privilege” life was devastating and demoralizing for me. I felt bamboozled in college, after college, and in many instances in life still to this day.” – Molly E. McLaurin
  1. “I felt Swedish, I breathed Swedish, and I lived Swedish – everything I did growing up other white Swedes did as well – but of course, as soon as anything negative happened in school as a kid or teen, it was all blamed on me, and my sister – the psychiatry got involved as is the practice here and only the two adopted kids got labeled, after which we got our rights removed as young adults – the practice is such that whenever an adopted kid/teen is involved in any trouble the psychiatry will label you, we’re sacrificed as scapegoats by the psychiatry and they don’t give a fuck about context, we’re treated like foreigners – not like citizens by them – the statistics tell of adopted kids being four times more common in the psychiatry, and in the suicides for a reason.” – Victor Fernando Nygren 
  1. “Growing up, my white adoptive parents forced me to believe they were my only family. Because of this, I’m unable to connect with my Indian culture. To the point where I don’t feel Indian. Sometimes it even feels like an Indian woman didn’t give birth to me.” – Winnie 
  1. “I always felt as though I wasn’t “Latina enough” or fitted in anywhere being a Transracial Adoptee. And being torn from my ethnic culture was not my choice as a child. However, reclaiming my roots and my power as an adult on my terms has been my choice, and I am grateful for it because now I realize that HOME has been inside of me all this time.” – Sarita Buer, Latina TRA – @saritawellness 
  1.  “Being a TRA has wreaked havoc on my mental and emotional health. Referring to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, my sense of security, belonging, and esteem was neglected when I had no racial mirrors during the formative first 19 years of my life. At the age of 55, I still have no sense of belonging, my self-esteem is in the trash, and I struggle forming lasting intimate relationships.  I wouldn’t wish this internal battle on anyone.” – Karen Elliott 
  1. “I think people often think that being adopted is a glamorous experience and a fairytale ending, and I’m here to say that yes, it was an experience I had, but the fairytale ending does not exist.  I have been navigating the intersections of my identity as a transracial international adoptee from South America, growing up in a predominantly white community, along with several other adopted siblings.  These experiences, while unique to my story, are very common, and I have realized how much of my mental health has been impacted by these many layers of my identity.  I hope people understand that being an adoptee is complicated and not as easy or wonderful as some people may think.” – Ana Felicia, Colombian Transracial International Adoptee 
  1. “This is what no one told me about being adopted…No one told me that I would find out that I was out of the loop when the most crucial moments in my life were set in motion. No one told me how misplaced I would feel — how I would grow up knowing that I am different, with my origins erased. That I would struggle with buried trauma, racial identity as never-ending grief, because I’ve lost something that I can neither recover nor just “get over.” – Eun Kyung Chee 
  1. “Biological connection means nothing and everything at the same time. You’re told blood doesn’t make a family, and love is a choice. But if love is a choice, then why is it so hard to choose to love yourself? Not knowing your true roots and being reminded of that harsh reality every time you look in the mirror, at your adoptive family’s faces, or at everyone around you who doesn’t resemble you at all makes self-love difficult. And being adopted, being biologically different certainly wasn’t my choice.” – Kelly Hrank 
  1. “Growing up, my experiences as a transracial transnational adoptee had been narrated and carefully curated by my white adoptive parents. As a child, the only feelings I was allowed to access were gratitude and happiness, and my own adoption story didn’t even belong to me. Coming out of the Fog freed me to embrace the anger, loss, and grief I had also been feeling my entire life. And to eventually meet a worldwide community of adoptees and witness others who felt exactly or similarly to me was validating and necessary for my adoption trauma healing.” – Maze Felix (They/Them)
  1. “Being a multiracial transracial adoptee is a constant search for identity. It is a constant navigation between belonging and not. I feel roots that I don’t know how to access and, at times, explore without feeling like an imposter. It is a constant practice of coming back to myself in acknowledgment that I am enough by just existing.” – Tisa A.
  1. “For me, my adoption is the “fairy tale” version, the one people think they’d be getting out of the whole experience. But just because the princess is happy now doesn’t mean her trauma is gone or no longer hurts her. She’s stuck in an endless loop of ‘what if it didn’t happen’ or ‘who was I supposed to be’ and feeling like an imposter at all times because she’s been playing a part she didn’t ask for. Yet, she wouldn’t change a thing because she loves herself for her strength and understanding adoption has given her.” – Supposed to be Selena
  1. “My closed transracial adoption was full of lies and deception regarding my ethnicity. This led to a lifetime of confusion, searching for clues to my racial identity. I never fit in and had no “tribe” or culture to claim as my own.” – Signed, T. Adams
  1. “Here’s an inside scoop to understanding an Adoptee’s Grief: No matter the explanation for why they were given away, babies do not understand logic and babies do not understand politics, but instead, all they know is that they were abandoned. Babies, instead, should feel safe, secure, wanted, and loved, but that is all lost in the process of relinquishment and adoption. Their baby self has learned the message that they are unwanted and unloved, and so the only way for Adoptees to heal is through self-love.” – Haley Hudler, Chinese American Adoptee, adopted in 1997.
  1. “Who I was before the fog was a version of me wearing a mask which was chosen for me. An identity handpicked. Now, here I am after the fog. Maskless. Identity reclaimed anew.” – Harley Place, Indian Adoptee 
  1. “I know what it feels like to hold a piece of myself that will never have a true sense of belonging to one culture or family, and that piece of me will always feel lost and stranded. I know what it feels like to grow up being racially isolated and wishing I were white, wishing I looked like my parents. I know what it feels like to be loved by my parents and to have the knowledge that their first preference was to have a biological child.” – Amanda Fallon, Korean American Adoptee, Adopted in 1982.
  1. “I may have been adopted from India by white people, but that doesn’t give me white privilege. Ever since 9/11, I receive far more uncomfortable looks from people at the airport.” – Nandeeta Ramsey
  1. “Adoption is my roaring broken heart beneath the expectations of love-starved strangers. It is the daring, lonely, and unending pursuit of finding doors and the skeletons they hide. The idea itself of embracing arms, of belonging, is the only home I’ll ever know.” – “Amanda” Wild
  1. “Like many transracial adoptees, I’ve always felt like a part of many worlds but more like a visiting tourist. My twist is that my adoptive mom was Mexican, and I’m white, so I grew up around relatives speaking Spanish and eating tamales at holidays, but since my mom didn’t make an effort to raise me as bilingual, I’m unable to access her/our full community. Now I send my little white kids to Spanish immersion school to [re]connect with our Mexican roots (that don’t actually feel rooted to my whole identity), which also gives me cultural appropriation vibes, but it truly was and is a big chunk of my multi-layered culture. So I’m in yet another space where I feel like I don’t belong- transracial adoptee communities that are seemingly all people of color.” – Mari Triplett
  1. “My proximity to Whiteness as a result of being raised in a White household didn’t shield me from experiencing racism. It deprived me of learning how to exist as a POC and instead taught me how to erase my sense of identity, culture, and self.” – Dong Mee
  1. “As a Chinese transracial adoptee who was raised by my Jewish mother in a predominantly white area, I experienced a lot of confusion surrounding my cultural, ethnic, and racial identity. I spent a lot of time feeling like I wasn’t Asian enough or Jewish enough, no matter how much I tried to fit into those two labels. Since finding the adoptee community, I finally feel like I’ve found a place where I truly belong and can just be my authentic self.” – Shelley Rottenberg | IG: @shelleyrottenberg
  1. “I feel impostor syndrome follows me throughout all of the cultures I’ve grown to be a part of, especially my own. I feel an openness to other races that is not reciprocated by anyone I know, as I don’t know any other trans-racially adopted people. I feel proud to be celebrating my culture as I learn it, whereas others who have grown up with this culture may leave it behind or take it for granted.” – Soni
  1. “I feel blessed that a family wanted me because upon finding my birth mother, she didn’t want anything to do with me after our first initial meet-up. When I think of transracial adoption. I realize the blessing lies in being able to identify with more than one ethnicity, and this trait allows my future work as a social worker to be impacted positively when it comes to the skill of tuning into the client, intellectually and effectively!” – IG @stay_driven05
  1. “I never know which culture I belong to. My Bulgarian Romani or my American that I was adopted into. I feel like I don’t belong in either, and when I do, I feel like an imposter.” – Maria
  1. “I never felt like I fit in, I lost my roots and my culture. I remember never knowing what I was ethnically when I was asked and telling my white friends they should be in my family photos instead because they looked more like everyone else.” – Chelle Cook
  1. “In grade school, I was one of the only Asian people in my predominantly white community and was heavily bullied for it. I didn’t even understand that I was being bullied at the time, so I never told anyone about the constant racist comments from my classmates. This, combined with having a white adoptive family, ultimately led to a big identity crisis, and it’s taken me a long time to start healing. Surrounding myself with people who accept me and exploring the adoptee community has helped me so much in my healing journey, and I hope other adoptees struggling can find loving communities just as I have!” – Kaeli Walker
  1. “The system of adoption has hurt both my adoptive parents and me and simultaneously makes it impossible for us to heal together. It has pitted us against each other, but we are not adversaries. We share collective pain.” – Julie Emra
  1. “Anytime I experienced racism or someone questioning my race or ethnicity my adoptive mom would always answer, “but you’re Italian too. Did you tell them that? I found out later I’m not even Italian.” – Rhiannon
  1. “Transracial adoption feels like having a house but never a home. Knowing that something/someone is missing, but not knowing how to fill that void. Perpetually isolated even when surrounded by your circle of love.”  – B
  1. “Strangers constantly pointed at me, asking my parents, “Is THAT your daughter?” My parents tried to pass me off as some exotic European, so I learned my true ethnicity by way of a schoolmate’s racial slur. My mom said I looked like a racially derogatory term when I braided my hair. I stood no chance of forming a healthy sense of self and will forever feel alien and disconnected.” – L. Calder
  1. “My mental picture of myself was so whitewashed that I couldn’t even recognize my own reflection. How do I reconcile my brownness with a culture that was taken from me?” – A. Kumari
  1. “I wasn’t adopted to take a pill. When I act out, I’m heartbroken, not mentally ill.” – Tinabtinari  
  1. “My birth mother did not write that my father was Puerto Rican on the birth certificate, fearing I would be adopted by a Spanish family. I spent my whole life thinking I was Irish and English. My adoptive family was in total disbelief that I am half Hispanic.” – Terri
  1. “As a transracial adoptee in a white country: “Family-seems to always end up being something I have to prove myself belonging to and worthy of” – Hasina
  1. “As a community, we often connect over our trauma and pain. What would it mean to build radical joy, love, and abundance? I have found that joy outside of the adoptee community by connecting with other movements where I can share new perspectives as an adopted person. What would it mean for our adoptee community to join broader movements for social change and add our voices to them?” – m. Seol 
  1. “I am a queer, trans, non-binary, neurodivergent, autistic, ADHD, PTSD, Asian-Chinese transracial + transnational (self-estranged) adoptee, survivor, artist, and human. I feel like I was just an object that was purchased and sold overseas as a ‘simple’ solution to a privileged white, cis, het couple’s infertility struggles, to fulfill their dream of having a baby and raising a family, except that each time that I strayed further from their idea of who I should be/who they wanted me to be for them, I got into trouble and made things worse for myself by exploring and expressing who I was. The greatest disservice of my transracial/transnational adoption experience was growing up and being treated like just another white member of the white family I was sold to because there were never conversations about race, I had to figure out on my own how to deal with racism and racist remarks directed towards me or in media, I never developed any early sense of comfortability with being Asian-Chinese, and they never allowed me to go outside of the child they wanted me to be, even when me trying to meet their unrealistic expectations almost killed me and lead me to several mental health struggles and life-long trauma. I AM NOT A SOLUTION, I AM A HUMAN/AN INDIVIDUAL, AND IT IS A DISSERVICE TO TRANSRACIAL ADOPTEES for adoptive parents to NOT embrace the child(ren)’s culture, language, food, history, and everything there is to know for the rest of their lives because THIS IS ABOUT SUPPORTING THE ADOPTEE AND THEIR LIFE; ADOPTION IS TRAUMA.” — IG: @ohheyyits_aj (they/them)
  1. “Adoption has brought me the most pain, privilege, loss, and love I could have ever imagined. I want people to know that the act of adoption is traumatic; losing your biological family, heritage, culture, language, and much more is trauma. I want people to know that I don’t think all adoption is bad, but I DO think people who consider adoption should heavily do their research. And lastly, I want people to know that I am enough, I am Asian enough, and I belong in both Asian and American spaces.”  – Lori Scoby
  1. “There has been a great struggle in my life to fit in. Like trying to make a square peg fit a round hole. So, it felt like being forced to whittle pieces of myself away even though I could never truly be like everyone around me. White.” – Hanna Lee
  1. “Being a transracial adoptee has always made me feel alone, unworthy and unwanted because I was “different.” “Didn’t have real parents who loved me” and never fit in with the ‘cool kids.’ Recently though, I learned that family is not always blood and true friends never judge you and love you for who you truly are. Being labeled as ‘adopted’ can be challenging to accept, but I’m learning to be proud of my label instead of embarrassed or ashamed. Because I’m adopted, I’ve found a loving and supportive community online and in real life, and I’m extremely grateful for my growth and who I’m becoming.” – Allyson Ware
  1. “I have had to fight my entire life to get back a fraction of what was taken from me, my language, my people, my country, my culture, my roots. I have fought so hard only to feel at times like it’s still not enough. I should never have had to fight for something that was my birthright.” – Marcella Moslow
  1. “There’s a difference between having a home and feeling at home. As a transracial adoptee, I’ve never experienced the latter, even though I grew up in a supportive, loving home. I currently live in a home and have built a life that’s overflowing with love, support, and empathy. Yet there remains a deep, innate void that permeates my soul, and I believe it will only be fulfilled when I return home to Korea.” – Tory Bae
  1. “My parents raised me with the “color blind” mentality that I was no different to anyone in the sea of white people I grew up around while simultaneously using my Asianness as a virtue signal in their saviorist narrative for adopting me. Since I was the first Asian person many people met, I was treated like I was the purveyor of all Asian culture & knowledge even though I was a child. I wish more people become aware of how patronizing it is to live with the belief that white people/the West are deemed better suited to adopt than the people of the same race/ethnicity of the children.” – Katie L. 
  1. “Abused, neglected, orphan adopted changes for families and nations to their delight, yet then is 4x more likely to suicide. Thank you for shifting the way you think and act about adoption to change that STAT.” – Kristina Lisa 
  1. “As a transcultural adoptee, I struggled for a long time to define my identity and what true belonging means to me—Until I discovered the concept of the third space. Here, I can liberate myself from external expectations and labels and be firm yet fluid in my self-understanding. I am Korean, I am German, and I am everything in between and beyond—I am simply Sun Mee.” – SUN MEE MARTIN
  1. “While my feelings about being adopted and being Korean-American are complicated, and they change often, I’m beyond thankful for adoption and the family it’s given me – my family is one of the clearest pictures of God’s goodness in my life. But it’s also really hard – being adopted is hard, and being Korean-American is hard, so having both of those experiences intersect can be confusing and painful at times. For me, having the safe space to process both my grief and gratitude has been so sweet. I’m thankful for the friends and family I have who have shown me Jesus through asking questions, listening to me ramble and reflect, and just being present for me in my pain and doubts this year.” – Kim G Instagram/Twitter – @kg_hyunmee
  1. “Quantum Leap Living, where life situations suddenly move me from one continent or situation to another- shedding and acquiring cultures, language, and even my own new/old names, has left me struggling my entire life with realizing I deserve a choice and say in my life. I’ve had to learn this through many emotionally and physically abusive relationships- I simply did not realize I had a choice. I thought “things” and people just happened to me, and I learned to endure.” – IG – @lalasunmi
  1. “My recent journey has been to recover/reclaim my Colombian culture and to reconnect it to my identity. All this with the hopes of integrating these aspects of myself that were lost to adoption. It’s also about remembering who we are behind all the social programming of family and society expects of us” – Elena Di Giovanna Serrato
  1. “Just because an adoptee is a certain race or was adopted from another country does not mean they have an obligation to learn the language, be interested in the culture, etc., of their birthplace. While there are many who wish for this, there are many who do not. This is part of an adoptee story. It shows the range and depth of our interpretations of personal experiences and should be validated.” – Emily IG – @languagetraveladoptee
  1. “Sometimes there’s a small feeling of envy for seeing others and families where the kids look like their parents. It’s not necessarily skin color but specific features. As a transracial adoptee, we sometimes feel more connected to others who are from the country we are born in and, as an extension of the culture. But really, we are culturally never going to be them, and our features will remain uniquely ours in families that brought us here, and that’s one thing not to envy.” – Tara S.
  1. “Being an adoptee is like being an elephant in a family of lambs. The environment that the elephant grows up in will affect its mind and heart. Don’t think it won’t, you’d be lying to yourself.” – Megha
  1. “Being a Chinese adoptee in America has had its ups and downs. I have struggled with feeling like I don’t always fit in and like I’m not good enough. Growing up, it was a constant battle trying to figure out and accept my identity. But even through the struggles I’ve faced, being a transracial adoptee has made me the strong woman I am today, and now I can proudly say I am a Chinese Adoptee.” – Olivia L.
  1. “Though I am a Haitian raised by a non-BIPOC mother, I am not “transracial.” Trans means to erase, transition or transfer. There was nothing left behind, nor did I forget any part of myself. I only had to awaken to this truth: Nothing was left behind, and even my ancestors came with me.” –Lanise Antoine Shelley
  1. “Adoption took not only my identity but my existence itself. Rootless, I felt the string that tied me to this world was broken. Faceless. Bodyless. Like if I didn’t exist until I found where I come from and who I am. How could I exist if there was no beginning? Now, I know.” – Andrea Maldonado
  1. “Culture that runs through the blood but doesn’t reach past the tongue.” – Savannah Quinn
  1. “Parents of transracial adoptees need to step in and advocate for them when they experience racism. It’s hard to self-advocate as a kid when you barely understand you’re a target of racism. The love of family is not a force field for racism-you need to be a vocal activist too.” – Sara W. 
  1. “The lines you created were an illusion. I know this because I crossed every one of them. When I didn’t fit into your box, you got scared. I got abandoned.” – Shaka Firefly IG – @shakafirefly 
  1. “My biological mother didn’t know or didn’t care to identify my biological father. She went so far as to have the wrong man sign away parental rights to me. I later learned she did know who my true father was and hid a huge part of my identity in the process. I was raised my whole life to believe I was white until I found and reunited with my Puerto Rican biological father.” – Luna Ashley IG: @thelunaashley
  1. “I have always known I was adopted and that I was Chinese. My adoptive mom made sure of that. That piece of my identity is why I am here, at the University of Minnesota, studying social work with dreams of working with transracial adoptees like me. I was privileged to grow up being proud of my race and ethnicity. I’m here because I want others to have the experience I did and not live in shame or sadness for not being White.” – Ariana Meidan
  1. “Hearing a deep sense of calling from your unconscious ancestral  being within but unable to unlock the secrets or hear its song.” – Jade
  1. “I’m so curious how come adoption has yet to solve the historic – current problem of leaving behind young – elder person, place, thing blamed, shamed, scapegoated, trashed that I began seeking and sharing solutions.” – River Riika IG: @witchtotake

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read quotes from 100 transracial adoptees. Please share this article in your online communities. Our hope is that we raise a brighter light around adoptee voices and bring the truth to light, one story, quote, and click at a time.

If you are an adoptee, what quotes spoke to you the most? Could you relate to any of your fellow transracial adoptee’s quotes?

Maybe you are an adoptee and missed the call to be included in this 100, we still want to hear from you! If you are an transracial adoptee who has a quote to share, please drop them in the comment section below.

If you are not an adoptee, but you have been impacted by this article in some way, we would love to hear your thoughts as well.

Once again, a special thank you to all 100 transracial adoptees who took the time to share your quote with me, and in return collaborated with one of the most important articles we can share. 100 transracial adoptees coming TOGETHER to share your truth is a powerful initiative.

XOXO P.K.

Don’t forget this article along with all my other articles are available in audio for your convenience, just look up Pamela A. Karanova Podcast on Google Podcasts, iTunes , Spotify. and Amazon Music. Interested in treating me with a coffee, to add fuel to my fire? Click here. Many thanks in advance to my supporters!

Chapter 4. Searching for Clues Among Chaos – Finding Purpose in The Pain, One Adoptees Journey from Heartbreak to Hope and Healing, An Audible Memoir By Pamela A. Karanova

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Chapter 4.

Searching for Clues Among Chaos By Pamela A. Karanova

“I see…the way you’re always searching. How much you hate anything fake or phony. How you’re older than your years, but still…playful, like a little girl. How you’re always looking into people, or wondering what they see when they look back at you. Your eyes. It’s all in the eyes.” – Claudia Gray

My entire childhood is filled with memories of hitting the highway and going back and forth between Dunkerton and Cedar Rapids every other weekend. It was Sunday at 5 PM, and we were swiftly dropped back off into Patricia’s care. Thomas and Laura never went inside; they just dropped us off and told us they would see us next time, two weeks later.

As soon as we returned to Patricia’s, the three-ring circus began. She had clothes piled up, waiting to be ironed. She taught me how to iron at around seven years old, and it was my job to iron all her clothes. As long as my eyes reached the top of the iron board, I could get the job done. By the time I was nine or ten years old, I was a professional ironer. The chores at Patricia’s were never-ending.

Anytime Patricia turned her back or took a nap, I was secretly busy searching for documents to find out who my birth mother was. Patricia had filing cabinets that were 6FT tall, a desk, and papers everywhere. I just knew there had to be some evidence somewhere. So day after day, for as long as I could remember, I would look everywhere I could think of to find adoption paperwork. Sadly, I never found any clues, and I searched all of her files numerous times.

When my searches continued to come up empty, around nine years old, I decided to be gutsy and ask Patricia, “I want to find my birth mother. How can I find her?”

Patricia’s response was the same each time I asked, and it sounded like a broken record, “Your adoption was closed, so we don’t have any information on your birth mother. When we get enough money for an attorney, we will get the sealed records opened, but right now, we don’t have enough money.”

My hope for a different response was inconsolable, but I never stopped asking the same question about every six months. Only to be given the same response every single time. The truth was, we were never going to have enough money. We still didn’t even have a fucking car! I was deeply conflicted that I didn’t know who my birth mother was.

On a scale of 1 to 10, adoptees with minimal issues with being adopted are at a 1, and adoptees with massive issues with it are at a 10; I was at 10,000. I was so emotionally disrupted by having a missing mother out there that I was physically ill. I remember having stomach issues around five years old and feeling sick a lot, and I ended up in the hospital many times as a child because of stomach problems. I was a thumb sucker, and I also had a baby blanket I was deeply attached to until one day, they threw it in the trash because they decided I didn’t need it anymore. This was traumatic as a child, on top of everything else.

Yet, not one adult in my life would acknowledge that separation from my birth mother and adoption might be the root instigation of these issues. The only diagnosis they could come up with was that I could be suffering from a dairy allergy, and they labeled me lactose intolerant. I have learned in recent years that many adoptees have stomach issues related to childhood anxiety and separation trauma compacted by adoption trauma. If you do the research, you can see for yourself.

What if I was suffering from anxiety deep in my body that I was in the wrong place? What if the separation from my birth mother was a traumatic experience? What if I never bonded with my adoptive mom, but I was forced to bond with her? What if her emotional outbursts and suicide attempts caused me severe PTSD? What if I have experienced severe trauma, and it was making me physically ill? What if the sexual abuse from my adopted stepbrother was taking a toll? What if I was suffering from an emotional response to all the things going on in both of these homes with Patricia, Thomas, and Laura?

But my angst and suffering were always neglected by Patricia and Melanie’s fights, and my feelings would never be acknowledged or discussed. Indeed, not one adult in my life, between my adoptive parents, teachers, school counselors, and regular counselors, would acknowledge a combination between adoption, relinquishment, and my adoptee issues, so I suffered and suffered greatly.

Because I suffered physically, emotionally, and mentally, it significantly impacted my school performance. But unfortunately, no one was paying attention that I had a learning disability, and I wouldn’t discover this until adulthood, on my own. Because of this, it seemed like I barely made it out of each grade and suffered in silence my entire life in grade school, middle school, and high school. As a child, my wants and needs were always swept under the rug, and Patricia’s dramatic emotional and mental outbursts always sat front and center in our daily lives.

After moving to Westover Road, my daily escapes seemed less frequent. Not because I didn’t want to get outside, but Patricia would stand in front of the one door to get in and out of the apartment, and she wouldn’t let me leave to go outside and play. She would cross her arms and shout, “You aren’t going anywhere!” I was trapped daily. How the hell was I going to get out of this house?

I knew if I were ever going to get outside, I would have to escape through the bedroom window and climb down the three levels to get to the ground. This was a more severe type of escape, and if I was going for it, it needed to be for a good reason! So I started to venture farther from home, and I learned all about taking the city bus at around nine years old. My feelings of getting in trouble were non-existent. In my mind, no punishment could be worse than living inside Patricia’s house.

Patricia had a sister named Jeanette, and she had six kids who were my favorite cousins. Melanie and I were close to Olivia, Jeanette’s oldest daughter. I was also significantly close to Jeanette’s sons, Wilder and Forest, who were younger than Olivia, more my age. Being a tomboy, Wilder, Forest, and I ran off to have adventures together. They had the advantage of living right across the street from Ellis Park, a park that ran alongside the Cedar River.

To get to Jeanette’s house, I had to escape out my third-floor bedroom window and take off walking in the direction to get to Ellis Park. I never asked for permission because I knew what the answer would be! It was seven miles away, and at nine years old, I would walk up to first avenue and spend hours walking to Jeanette’s house. But, for sure, every step I took was a step towards freedom. Finally, after so many trips to Jeanette’s, I learned there was a city bus line that would take me straight to Ellis Park! It was on and popping now. Over time, I learned I could take the city bus all over the city! Freedom just entered a whole new level!

By the time I made it to Jeanette’s house, my cousins were waiting for me! Their house was different than Patricia’s house. Things leaned on the messy side, but it was refreshing to arrive somewhere I could be a kid, and Mark and Patricia were nowhere around. I honestly never wanted to leave, and Ellis Park and the golf course across the street were always a great escape for all of us kids.

We would scamper down to the Cedar River in wintertime and skate on the ice regularly. If our parents knew we were doing this, we would have been in big trouble. I will never forget the Ellis Park Golf Course would turn its giant sprinklers on in the summertime, and we would sneak over to play in them at all hours of the night. Then, once we saw the groundskeeper coming over the hill, we would squeal and take off running! We owned Ellis Park and knew every inch of the area as we frequented the park any chance we could. Some of my favorite childhood memories are running free in Ellis Park with my cousins, and I cherish them all.

Eventually, I would have to return to Patricia’s house after what felt like a “day pass” from jail and return to the life I despised the most. When I was younger, I didn’t have a voice and was a good compliant adoptee. But boy, by the time I progressed into my pre-teen identity, the tables got flipped upside down. I started to stand up for myself.

While I feel Melanie began to do this at a much younger age than I did, I am proud that she had the willpower to keep standing up for herself in such a harmful home! Sadly, her standing up for herself backfired on several occasions. Patricia convinced all of her close friends and church group that Melanie was problematic. She was convinced that the “tough love” way was the only way, and she had Melanie physically removed from the home on several occasions. She not only had her physically removed from the home by random strangers, but she also had them drop her off at the locked local psych ward, where she would stay for several weeks on end.

I always felt despair for Melanie when I was a child. I didn’t understand that Patricia was the one who suffered from mental illness, and she was the one that should have been locked in the psyche ward! After those interactions, Melanie must have felt heartbroken, and my heart truly breaks for her. Still, to this day, my heart breaks for all she went through growing up in Melanie’s care. She deserved so much more. We both did.

Anytime Melanie was “away,” I would be the sole focus of Patricia’s interactions, almost like her projecting her toxicity was placed directly on me because Melanie was out of the picture for a short time. Either way, we were both directly impacted by Patricia’s ill mental health, which impacted every area of our lives growing up.

After a few trips to the psych ward and a lifetime of disaster with Patricia, Melanie decided she wanted to go live with Thomas and Laura. I don’t blame her. She was around 13, and I was about 12 years old. Maybe things would improve for everyone because Patricia and Melanie were now separated? Maybe the house would be more peaceful? Maybe Melanie would be happier at Thomas and Laura’s?

Boy, was I mistaken. As soon as Melanie left and moved away, the shit hit the fan with Patricia and me in a whole new way. It was like the flip of a switch, an overnight change where the good adoptee turned herself in, never to return. I now wore the shoes of the bad adoptee, I put on my boxing gloves, and I started to act out because I was the sole beneficiary of Patricia’s wrath, mental illness, and toxicity.

Sunday morning, the summer of 1986, Patricia gets a call from the Springville Police Department. “Hi Patricia, we have your daughter, Pamela, in custody. She’s been arrested with several other kids for burglary. You can come to pick her up, but she will likely be on probation and have to complete restitution. This week, you will hear from her new probation officer on the next steps.” So, Patricia came to pick me up, which was the beginning of my adoptee anger, rage, rebellion, and defiance. Reality began to set in that my birth mother wasn’t coming back to get me, and deep down, I was miserable. Hurt was the root, but it showed up in brutal ways.

Feelings of anger, rage, and self-hate started to internalize deep inside me from a very early age. Soon they took over subconsciously, and I felt abandoned by the woman who should have loved me the most, my birth mother. Just because she didn’t come back for me didn’t mean I wasn’t searching for her. I continued to search for clues to find her everywhere I went. I was tormented every day by not knowing who she was or where I came from.

This was around the time I stopped wanting to visit Thomas and Laura’s house due to the things Mark was doing to me. I was in for a real-life changing experience about how distressing things would get at Patricia’s house. The good adoptee disappeared into nothingness, and I started to have very unfavorable feelings about Patricia. My newfound adoration of escaping out my third-floor bedroom window was a fast track to being a runaway and experiencing a ruthless street life. Unruly was about to become an understatement.

Little did I know, agony hadn’t even begun for me. I was 12 years old, and by the time I was 15 years old, I had already experienced what most people don’t experience in an entire lifetime.

Facebook: Pamela A. Karanova

Don’t forget that I’m streaming my articles on several audio platforms for your listening convenience! 👇🏼

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*The views and opinions expressed in this article, memoir, and podcast are that of the author, Pamela A. Karanova. Reproduction of the material contained in this publication may be made only with the written permission of Pamela A. Karanova

Introduction – Finding Purpose In The Pain, One Adoptees Journey from Heartbreak to Hope and Healing, An Audible Memoir By Pamela A. Karanova

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Introduction By Pamela A. Karanova

“We have to walk through all the adoptee layers, to make it to the light, but it won’t come overnight or without a lifelong fight!” – Finding Purpose in the Pain – One Adoptees Journey from Heartbreak to Hope and Healing, An Audible Memoir By Pamela A. Karanova

This is the story of my beginnings of how I was born and grew up, discovered I was adopted, and went on to find my biological family going against the grain of the closed adoption system. This is a story of searching and finding in a time when there was no internet, cell phones, or adoptee-centric connect groups. It’s a story of acceptance, acknowledgment, processing grief, loss, abandonment, rejection, and ultimately healing. It’s a story of never giving up hope that I would find my people and essentially my truth one day.

It’s taken me close to 48 years to finally come to a place where I am ready to share my story via an audible memoir. I have been writing for over a decade on my website, and I have attempted to write my story off and on over the last ten years, but one thing was sure. It wasn’t time yet. Timing is everything.

While most non-adopted people likely can’t relate, the adoptee experience isn’t your typical life experience. While other people were the ones who made this decision for my life, I have been the one to unravel all of the truths and tales to get to the bottom of why I am here and who I am. Like most adoptees, my story is complex, trauma-filled, messy, and ugly at times. But, it’s also an equal combination of triumph, healing, surviving, and overcoming the odds. I’m excited to share my story with you.

It’s only been the last 4 to 5 years that I have arrived at the space of healing where I feel confident in sharing pieces of my story that I have always left in the dark. While I have demanded the universe tell me my truth, I have had to kick, scream, and fight every step of the way to get it. As a result, I have made some mistakes and pissed many people off, and I am confident this audible memoir will piss more people off.

While most stories might start with the typical “beginning of life” theme, that place for me was null and void because it was kept a secret from me due to being adopted in a closed adoption in 1974. The beginning of my life was the state of Iowa’s best-kept secret.

One of the biggest struggles in getting my story out is that I never knew where to start with my life beginning non-traditionally. I thank the unnatural act of adoption for that. Thinking about my life and its complexities, my thoughts would overwhelm me when I started to write my story, and I would shut down in frustration. I would start a chapter and then stop, start another chapter and then stop again.

It’s no secret when someone is adopted; their beginnings aren’t usually a cute story, even when the world tries to cover it up and celebrate adoption in all God’s glory. The truth is, I didn’t know my beginnings, and if I let the world have its way, I would never know who I was or where I came from.

We all have a beginning, but adoptees often don’t know their beginning until the middle of their lives and sometimes the end. Sometimes they don’t know their truth at all. Not that they didn’t want to know it, but there are a million roadblocks that stand in the way. I plan to share some with you as I share my story.

While I share my story with you, I need to share that some names, locations, and minor details have been fictionalized to protect the people’s privacy discussed in this audible memoir. Otherwise, this memoir is true based on experiences that I remember with a few specific areas where I fill in the gaps with creative nonfiction. Some of the things I share are stories and facts that I have heard from other people who were close to my adoptive families and birth families.

This audible memoir should be considered a trigger warning to all who read and listen to it. I discuss suicide, religious trauma, spiritual bypassing, deconstructing from religion, drug and alcohol abuse, recovery, failed therapy attempts, emotional, mental, physical abuse, and sexual abuse. I will share my chapters by uploading them to my platforms one by one and writing them one by one because I find this a more manageable and less stressful load due to having a full-time career and Adoptees Connect, Inc. to manage. Beware, I use curse words to express my feelings, and I consider this an essential part of my healing and recovery process. If you have sensitive ears, do not proceed.

I will also consider the nature of the content I will share as sensitive, and practicing self-care between the chapters will be essential to share my story. Sharing my story is a tremendous labor of love and one that I have to go back in time to revisit. I will be reliving traumatic events from the past and revisiting experiences that scare me slightly. Chapter by chapter, discovering clue by clue, I invite you to join me as I release one chapter at a time and take breaks in between to pause to reflect on all my life has been.

This is a story about breaking out of the boxes that society has built around me and discovering who I am and who I’m not, regardless of my adoption status. It’s a story of constantly evolving to grow, heal and overcome the obstacles I had no choice over that many adoptees face.

Thank you for being on this journey with me, being patient with me, and understanding that I am sure I will make mistakes along the way. This will not be your traditional memoir because I am telling my story in the way that works the best for me. I will do the best I can to articulate events of my life to the best of my abilities. My entire life, I would look in the mirror and ask myself, who am I, and where did I come from? Who’s fingers and toes do I have? Why am I so tall?

Finally, after 48 years, I can be true to myself and share with you what it costs me to discover my truth.

Meet Little Pammy.

Facebook: Pamela A. Karanova

Don’t forget that I’m streaming my articles on several audio platforms for your listening convenience! 👇🏼

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*The views and opinions expressed in this article, memoir and podcast are that of the author, Pamela A. Karanova. Reproduction of the material contained in this publication may be made only with the written permission of Pamela A. Karanova

Lying Lips and DNA Kits

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova12 Comments

It’s not enough that many times the information that is relayed over to the adoptee/relinquishee is shadowy at best. Still, often we are presented with information based on inaccurate data that is usually restricted and modified to stall the adoptee/relinqishee or throw them off entirely from ever learning who they are and where they come from.

One of the many challenging lessons I’ve learned over the last 10+ years of coming out of the fog regarding my adoption journey is that no matter what we find or how we find it, we should ALWAYS back our stories and conclusions up by doing DNA testing, preferably Ancestry DNA. Ancestry has the most extensive database with nearly 20 million people.

Here’s why I make this suggestion.

People lie when it comes to adoption and relinquishment stories. While we learn from childhood that lying is never okay and even receive punishment as a child for such activities, our society accepts this rule in adoption and relinquishment; our culture makes an exception to this rule. Sometimes I believe that people believe their lies, and sometimes we don’t want to accept them. We feel a shadowed conclusion that doesn’t sit well with our internal dialogue.

Let me give you an example of this. I was told back in 1998 from an individual in my birth mother’s family that my birth father was dead and that he had gotten shot. I sat with that for a minute, and it never sat well with my spirit. But, my intuition is on point, so I said to the world. “If he’s dead, let me confirm he’s my father via DNA testing FIRST, and let me stand of that man’s grave and see his death certificate so I can see it for myself.” Unfortunately, I know countless adoptees who have been sold a lie.

I was never able to receive either of them, and in 2010 I decided to drive 11+ hours from Kentucky to Leon, Iowa, and I showed up at his doorstep and introduced myself. That man wasn’t dead, and he was very much alive. So they lied to me, and chances are if you are adopted, you have been lied to also. I learned from a close family friend that I was conceived out of a one-night stand with a married man. He knew nothing of the pregnancy, and he never consented that I was given up for adoption.  

Sometimes as adoptees, we want something to be confirmed with every fiber in our being, so we ignore the signs or subtle hints that a find might not be true, accurate, or correct. Instead, we jump in head over heels, going by what we were told or what we hope to be true. I hope this article puts a pause in play for anyone that reads it. Please tread carefully and always, always, get DNA testing done BEFORE you build relationships with someone you suspect might be your biological family.

Adoptees/relinquishes are vulnerable individuals. When searching, we often open our hearts and lives as wide as they can go to receive whatever it is we have been fantasizing about our entire lives. We assume the best yet frequently are left feeling misled, robbed, or even taken advantage of. Sometimes this can feel like the biggest disappointment of our lives.

Growing up, our life is filled with fantasies about what we will find. Where is the mother that “loved us so much?” But often, we’re faced with the complete opposite, a cold, disconnected woman that shows no signs towards us that feel like anything close to “love.”

People say, “Expect the worst and hope for the best.” Yet, I am here to tell you there is no natural way to prepare for such conflicting and unimaginable feelings and emotions that come with our discoveries, no matter what they turn out like. It’s like opening a pandora’s box, and what we find can be shattering combined with fulfilling. It’s complex at best, but not learning the solid truth can be devastating beyond repair, so DNA testing is exceedingly essential.

My life story backs this conclusion up because, in 2010, I learned I had a half-sibling out there in the world. After a year of searching, I finally found him. We compared notes, and he ended up being the absolute best part of my reunion story. We spent time together from states away, planned visits and trips together. We accepted one another and our children and spent five years building a relationship. I always said he was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and he was and is to this day the only happy and positive part of my whole adoption experience and story.

Until January 2016, everything was flipped upside down. We ended up doing DNA testing to send the results that my brother and I were connected via DNA to my birth father. He has always expressed a deep-rooted feeling of disbelief that either of us was his biological adult children. To be completely transparent, I haven’t blamed him. He didn’t know anything about me, and he said he had reason to doubt my newfound brother was his biological son. This was why I wanted to complete DNA testing with my brother, so we could present the truth in hopes that it might change something with my biological father because initially, he rejected us, not knowing if we were his or not.

While I had taken the position to clear up this bed of lies that my life was rooted in, I had no idea what the DNA test would soon reveal. In January 2017, the DNA test returned and said WE SHARED NO DNA. I will never forget how this made me feel. I was sick and so distraught that I honestly didn’t believe it. The first person I reached out to was the amazing and gracious Priscilla Stone-Sharp, and I asked her if she could double-check this for me. She concluded that my newfound brother and I shared no DNA. However, we could pinpoint that my birth father was my birth father. His mother’s maiden name is all over in my highest DNA matches. However, my new brother is the one that showed NO DNA with my birth father, which means his biological mother gave him the incorrect information on who his biological father was.

Now that I had opened that whole can of worms, I had to reveal this to my brother, which was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. But, unfortunately, he flat out didn’t believe the DNA results and ended up tragically passing away a few months later in a motorcycle crash. This experience sent me into a profound depression and sadness I could not process at all. I was living alcohol-free, but I could not feel these feelings, and I had no idea the level of grief and sadness that would soon take over my life.

It was such a complex situation that no one could help me, and I couldn’t even find the right words to use to describe this situation. I kept referring to my brother as “My brother who turned out not to be my brother” because I didn’t know how to describe it. I couldn’t believe that one ONLY GOOD PART OF MY STORY wasn’t genuine, I was duped once again, and the devastation left me in horrible shape. I couldn’t stand the thought of therapying another therapist, and this is when I put my vision of Adoptees Connect, Inc. into action, which saved my life.

It’s taken me all these years to begin to recover, and I still have a lot of sadness about it. I wanted to share this dynamic because I want non-adoptees to see what adopted people have to go through when we are searching for our truth. All these hoops and hurdles can and do exhaust us, they destroy us, and they can and do take us down. It’s inhumane that the adults in our lives signed us up to go through this. Literally, every adult who took part in signing any adoption documents signed over that they would be okay letting me suffer and damn near die in my pain from all the secrecy, lies, and deception from adoption and the adults that co-signed for this traumatic event to happen to me.

Today, I have annulled my adoption in my mind, body, and spirit, and I sometimes remind myself that I didn’t’ sign any adoption paperwork. Yet, I have survived this nightmare, moved across the country, changed my name, and started my life over.

For my fellow adoptees who might have made it this far, I beg you to please get DNA testing before you build relationships or get too excited about a possible discovery you believe is a biological family member. The pain of the alternative I have shared here is something I do not want anyone to go through because it’s unbearable when we already feel so alone; we get our hopes up and put ourselves out there. Ancestry DNA has sales around major holidays, and the DNA kits are $59.00.

Not getting DNA testing FIRST can add a new level of trauma that you do not deserve. Please learn from my experience. Trust me; you do not want to risk it.

For those who might be wondering, this changed nothing with my birth father. I sent him confirmation I am his daughter, and he tossed it in the trash, and went on his merry way.

Don’t forget this article along with all my other articles are available in audio for your convenience, just look up Pamela A. Karanova Podcast on Google Podcasts, iTunes , Spotify. and Amazon Music. Interested in treating me with a coffee, to add fuel to my fire? Click here. Many thanks in advance to my supporters!

Thanks for reading,

Love, Love

*The views and opinions expressed in this article are that of the author, Pamela A. Karanova. Reproduction of the material contained in this publication may be made only with the written permission of Pamela A. Karanova

That Moment I Wanted My Mom, Then I Remembered I Don’t Have One.

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova1 Comment

On February 19th, I had an accident where I slipped hard and fell on the ice, and I hurt myself badly. I was trying to get to work to take the lady I care for to get her Covid-19 Vaccine, and time was in a significant crunch. It was 6:30 AM on a Friday, and the sun hadn’t even started coming up yet.

As my feet slipped out from in front of me and my back and backside landed hard on my three front steps covered with ice. My left hand was mangled in the railing, my car key snapped off the keyring and flew in the snow. My right palm tried to help me land but ended up being bruised and hurt as well.

I tried to find my car key, but I was completely taken back, and now I didn’t even have a car key to get to work. I started to become frantic while my pinkie was bleeding, swelling, and causing me a lot of pain. My backside was doing the same.

I remembered I had a spare key inside, but I had to find a battery. Thankfully, I was on my way to work, pretty banged up. I arrived one minute early. Over the next few hours, a football-sized bruise appeared, and the color changed from dark purple to almost black. The swelling was out of this world. I still had to work, which was not easy.

As the days passed, my pain set in, and I was beside myself. After nine days, I hoped my pain would be better, but I was still in a significant amount of pain. While the bruise was getting lighter, the knot in the middle of the bruise was the same size, about 5in x 6in, and the pain was still about an 8. I decided this past Sunday I was going to the ER to check it out to make sure nothing else was going on. I also wanted to discuss some pain medication for nighttime which seemed to make sleeping impossible.  

All CT scans came back normal, which I figured they would, and they ended up sending me home with some pain meds, and they wanted the hematoma that was causing so much pain to absorb itself back into the skin. In the meantime, they gave me a shot in my arm of pain meds.

This shot was so painful; I had immediate tears stream down my face, and at that moment, it hit me. Something that never hits me.

I wanted my mom.

This wasn’t the familiar daily feeling of wishing I had a mom as an adult; it was much deeper than that. I want a mom every day, and I’m constantly reminded I don’t have one but this was a deep and sad longing, one that has rarely ever come out in my adult life.

Is it a sign of healing?

Is it a sign of saving space for my inner child to come out?

 It was a new experience for me because my story is a story that has unfortunately set me up to live a life MOTHERLESS. As the thoughts of wanting a mother came over me, this deep sadness came over me. I was in the ER hospital room alone, and I realized I didn’t have a mom.

It’s not that my moms are dead, and I had a lifetime of beautiful memories with them, and they just no longer existed because they passed away. Both my adoptive mother and biological mother have passed away. It was more so the sadness set in that the biological mother I wanted and needed didn’t want or need me. And the mother that wanted me couldn’t care for me; she wasn’t there for me. She was mentally ill, and she was emotionally and mentally abusive in a lot of ways. She caused me a lot of childhood trauma, and I never felt connected to her or bonded with her. I felt like I was forced to bond with her, which was traumatic in its own way.

This reality set in, and tears were nonstop. I let myself cry and sit in the sadness. I couldn’t help but think about the last time being connected to my biological mother in a hospital, which was 46 years ago, the day I lost her on 8.13.74. Did you know the maternal bond that’s formed with your biological mother is the core bond that sets the tone for the path of your life? There is lack of resources for adoptees on this topic that directly connects adopted individuals who are relinquished by their biological mothers but there are many studies and articles for adoptive parents, and non adopted individuals.

Robert Winston and Rebecca Chicot explain –

“Infancy is a crucial time for brain development. It is vital that babies and their parents are supported during this time to promote attachment. Without a good initial bond, children are less likely to grow up to become happy, independent and resilient adults.” – The importance of early bonding on long term mental health and resilience in children.

David Chaimberlain, Ph.D. says –

“Separation of mothers and newborns is a physical deprivation and an emotional trail. Mothers know deep within themselves what scientists are just discovering – the relations between mothers and babies are mutual, reciprocal, even magical. A baby’s cry triggers release of the mother’s milk, the only perfect milk on earth for babies. In addition, there is a vital power in the baby’s look and touch to turn on feelings and skills necessary for successful mothering.” – Babies Remember Birth.

Where does this leave relinquished newborns in regards to the prenatal and perinatal bonding and the traumatic separation at the beginning of life?

When I was a child, I used to have a reoccurring dream that I was about 4-5 years old, running down a maternity ward’s long hallway. Everything was white. I had a hospital gown on, no shoes, and the hallway went on forever and ever. I remember a clock being at the end of the hallway, and the time was disappearing minute by minute as I ran. I remember jerking all the curtains back, one by one in terror, as I searched for HER. It went on forever. I never did find her, but this dream was reoccurring through most of my life. Did this hospital visit connect me to that dream subconsciously? It’s hard to fathom I’m 46 years old, and discovering these connections and truths are still impacting me greatly.

I’ve recently started to become familiar with IFS – Internal Family Systems by recommended by a great friend, Stephani H. (TY STEPH!) Watching the video will explain what IFS is the best, but in a nutshell, you identify different parts of us that have been parts of us back to the beginning of our lives. It helps us learn our parts are all welcomed and a part of us.

Stephani mentioned that it was my inner child part that wanted my mom, and when she said that, it made total sense to me. It was the little girl in me that just really needed my mom with me, and the entire concept that she wasn’t there, and she has never been, and she never will be set in. It was a hard pill to swallow. I was in a significant amount of pain, and that didn’t help me any.

The best part is, I’m learning that my feelings of sadness are not feelings to run from; they are feelings to sit with. I didn’t realize that was my inner child feeling that way until after I was already home and Stephani mentioned it to me. I was blown away because it made total sense.

If I thought of that while I was at the hospital, IFS teaches us to talk to the parts, welcome them and give them what wasn’t given to me as a child. I didn’t realize it until I was already home, but my sadness consisted, and I got comfort in understanding the dynamics of my child part coming out while I was at the hospital.

I have recently decided to give IFS therapy a try, and in the last month of learning about it, it is a miraculous and fantastic tool. I don’t want to share much here, but I plan to write about my experience with IFS because I want other adoptees to consider using it as a healing tool.

At a very young age, I was disassociated from the entire concept of wanting and needing a mother to protect myself. When those feelings came, it caught me off guard. I’m usually a strong person, and tears are something in the past I have held inside. But this time, these feelings wouldn’t let me. Even when I tried to stop crying, the feelings of wanting my mom overwhelmed me. I’m 46 years old and still navigating the aftermath of adoption.

As I learn more about IFS, self & my parts, I want to share them with you! I’m also starting therapy with a new therapist who is an adoptee! I am excited about this process. It seems I’ve done a lot of self-work, but I have never done trauma work. I have work to do. I think acknowledging these parts is the first step, and making the choice to sit with them, and no run is the next step. What’s next? I hope to share with you what the process looks like by trauma informed therapy, IFS and other techniques I am using to navigate the healing process from an adoptees perspective who also lives a life sober of alcohol.

Adoptees, have you ever been in a situation where you wanted your mom on a deeper level? Did these feelings surprise you? I would love to know how you describe them? What helps you navigate them when they come?

Don’t forget this article along with all my other articles are available in audio for your convenience, just look up Pamela A. Karanova Podcast on Google Podcasts, iTunes , Spotify. and Amazon Music. Interested in treating me with a coffee, to add fuel to my fire? Click here. Many thanks in advance to my supporters!

The views and opinions expressed in this article are that of the author, Pamela A. Karanova. Reproduction of the material contained in this publication may be made only with the written permission of Pamela A. Karanova

Happy Mother’s Day to The Missing Mother

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova4 Comments

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Mother’s Day is approaching and it is a touchy day for so many people, especially adoptees. I seem to find words to write about how I feel about Mother’s Day each year, and I’m noticing the more I heal in my own personal journey, the less I have to say. The more I heal, the less intense my feelings are about the whole concept of a MOTHER. Things really started to change for me, when I started to mother MYSELF. 

What does mothering myself look like for me? Taking care of myself. Setting major boundaries in my personal and professional life. Not being so available, which is leading to less stress and anxiety.  Doing small and big things to feed my spirit. Surrounding myself with things I enjoy and love. Saying “No” when things don’t interest me. Saying “yes” to more adventures, and being outside. Making changes when things aren’t in healthy alignment with my mind, body and spirit. Telling myself that I’m wonderful and amazing. Accepting my flaws, and still providing myself with the love I deserve each day. Speaking kindly to myself, and about myself.

This isn’t always easy for me. It’s hard to see ourselves like others see us, especially like a mother sees her child. If I’ve never felt that from a mother, it’s challenging to see that in myself. But I do the best I can. Allowing myself the space to mother myself, as well as the inner child, the little girl that was abandoned has really helped me on my healing journey. 

Besides my role in being a mother to my kids, It’s interesting that the first time I saw what a mother was supposed to be like was 14 years ago in 2005, when I started taking care of a stroke patient. This is the same amazing lady I still take care of today. Going on 15 years, I will never forget the first time her daughter was visiting from out of state, and they went to say “Goodbye” to one another. The daughter and mother put their faces really close together, they touched each other’s faces, looked in each other’s eyes and told one another how much they loved one another. This lasted for a whole minute, which was a painstaking reality for me of something I never have had, and I never will have. I had never seen a mother and a daughter with the closeness they have, and still haven’t to this day. 

Is what they have a rarity in life?  I have no idea, but it was definitely a rarity in my life, for me to see. Never having a mother in my life, has really caused the biggest wound I have been working towards healing, and that’s the mother wound. When you are adopted, this wound is also understood as the primal wound. It’s a really deep wound, and for me personally nothing has caused me more pain in my lifetime x2 because of the adopted and biological mom dynamics. I didn’t strike it out once, but twice in the mother area. Sometimes I have a hard time believing this is real. 

Like many adoptees, the whole concept of a mother is a tough topic. Some of us were fortunate enough to have a close relationship with our adoptive moms. It’s possibly we reunited with our biological mothers and rekindled some of what was lost, having a good relationship. Other adoptees could have had a rejection experience with our biological mothers, and others we had strained relationships with our adoptive mothers. For others, like me, we had toxic relationships with our adoptive moms, and our birth mothers either rejected us, or things have gone sideways, leaving many of us with broken hearts. 

I had a broken heart from my adoption experience for most of my life. It was only over the last 10 years of me sharing my journey, and finding purpose in the pain that everything changed for me. It’s only been since leaving the church that things changed as well. I’ve ran away to find myself, and it’s worked for me. I’ve broken out of the systems set up to keep us confined, and I’m free to be me. I’ve eliminated all toxic relationships, and each day I’m working on self improvement. 

Little by little, my broken heart has been transformed to a heart that’s learning to love myself, mother myself. I’ve accepted I will never have a mother. I’ve accepted that triggers of this reality will plague my life every time I turn around. Between social media, holidays, television shows, others talking about their mothers, and the daily, hourly reminder that there is no mother’s love for me, I’m reminded. I’m reminded when something exciting happens and I have no mother to call. I’m reminded when I get a scary doctor’s diagnosis, and I have no mother to call. I sure could have used a mother in my life but that’s not the cards I was dealt. I have accepted it which has been a pivotal piece to my healing journey. It seems I’ve always been hyper focused on my mother LOSS, it wasn’t allowing me to celebrate GAINING the fact that I’m a MOTHER to celebrate. The pain was too great for me to shift focus for most of my life. 

Another very important step in this mother wound, as Mothers Day approaches is allowing my sadness to come and not running from it. I need to process it, however that looks for me. Usually when I wake up, or go to bed that night I have a really good cry! Like a sobbing, snot slinging cry. I sometimes write my feelings out as a way to release them. It’s likely I usually don’t share them with anyone, because who really wants to hear it? If you have someone you trust, you feel you can talk to, that’s a wonderful tool in sharing your feelings.  

Most people say, “Celebrate YOU and the mother you are!” This is such a good point! The img_7118part that brings me happiness on Mother’s Day is being a Mother to my 3 amazing kids. Once I started to try to reframe my thinking from being REALLY SAD about the loss of a mother, and the gigantic mother wound and try to think about how awesome it’s been to be a mom, things got a little easier for me. 

It’s been the hardest job I’ve ever had but definitely the most rewarding. Maybe some of us (adoptees) don’t have kids, and we aren’t parents? Maybe we have pets that have been our babies? I have that too, and I celebrate being a pet mom to them. Maybe we don’t have pets, but we have someone special in our lives that we’ve been able to be a mother type figure too? Maybe you have close relationships with your adoptive or biological moms, yet you can’t see them due to the Covid-19 situation? This is likely going to be a tough Mother’s Day for everyone, adopted or not. I’m sorry. It truly sucks. Just know you aren’t alone, and I’m sure this is heartbreaking and difficult for everyone. 

I’ve been fortunate enough to have some amazing women in my life who are like mothers to me. I would give anything for this to be true, in them TRULY being my mother by DNA, but obviously that’s not realistic thinking. I’m thankful for each of them and for our relationships over the years. Patsy, Jan, Cousin Linda – I love you! Thank you for being the closest things to a mother I will ever have! Thank you for accepting me and loving me through the storms & the celebrations. I love you right back. ❤ 

For my fellow adoptees, whatever this Mother’s Day brings you, I hope somewhere in the img_7120midst you are able to celebrate YOU, because you survived this thing and you are wading through the trenches to survive daily! I think we all are truly doing the best we can. I hope you allow yourself to feel the grief and loss, and you also allow yourself some space to bring yourself some happiness on this day. Maybe get your favorite ice cream, or go outside and sit in the sunshine for 30 minutes and put your feet in the grass? Take a walk outside, and watch your favorite television show. Whatever your “thing” is, don’t forget to take care of you! 

For my fellow adoptees, how does Mother’s Day impact you? How do you feel about it? Do you have a mom to celebrate? Do you celebrate yourself?  How do you make it through it?

For those who have minimal or no issues with it, how did you come to this place? We can learn so much from one another. I would love to hear how you are making it! 

Don’t forget this article along with all my other articles are available in audio for your convenience, just look up Pamela A. Karanova Podcast on Google Podcasts, iTunes , Spotify. and Amazon Music. Interested in treating me with a coffee, to add fuel to my fire? Click here. Many thanks in advance to my supporters!

Sending Love & Light 

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Still Grieving Adoptee Losses, What My Adoptive Parents Could Have Done Differently

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova38 Comments

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I was born in Iowa in August of 1974. At that moment when I found out I was adopted back in 1979, I wish my adoptive mom would have sat down with me and opened the conversations about what adoption REALLY meant. I was around 5 years old.

Instead, I got something like this.

Me: Mommy, I grew in your tummy like the baby in the lady’s belly on television?

Adoptive Mom: No, you grew in another lady’s belly. She loved you so much, she gave you to me to raise because she wanted you to have a better life. It was a dream come true for me to become a mommy. I couldn’t have children of my own. I will always love her for that because she’s given me the greatest gift of my life.

Me: Who is she?

Adoptive Mom: I don’t know who she is. You were adopted. If you want to know who she is, we will have to wait until we get enough money for an attorney to get the sealed records opened. Right now, we don’t have enough money. I just know she loved you so much and wanted you to have a better life.

Me: Where is she?

Adoptive Mom: I don’t know where she is.

Me 1980: Who is She?

Me 1981: Where is She?

Me 1982: Who Is She?

Me 1983: Where is She?

Me 1984: Who is She?

Me 1985-1994: Every Single Year – Who is she? Where is She?

Every Single Year

Adoptive Mom: I don’t know who she is or where she is. You were adopted. If you want to know who she is, we will have to wait until we get enough money for an attorney to get the sealed records opened. Right now, we don’t have enough money.

At 21 Years Old in 1995 I said to my adoptive mom, “WHO IS MY BIRTH MOTHER? WHERE IS SHE?’ It was like a broken record. 

Adoptive Mom: Well, there’s something I want to tell you. When your dad and I signed the paperwork for you to be adopted, the doctors accidentally gave us the wrong paperwork. We saw your birth mothers name, and the street she lived on. If you call your dad, he might remember the information.

I remember this exact moment, because I immediately became enraged and the anger that took over, is something that’s hard for me to process. I’m just telling you THE TRUTH because once I found out she lied to me my entire life, I have never looked at her like a mother again. EVER! Yes, for the record I have forgiven her, but we had an estranged relationship until she died and I don’t regret it for a minute. I can’t have people in my life who lie to me, for any reason at all. Hopefully this will help adoptive parents understand, lying and deception under any circumstances is never okay.

What kind of mother lies to their child repeatedly? I have had to unpack this, and there are many layers and dynamics to it but this layer (along with all the layers of adoption) of the onion has impacted me greatly my entire life.

I was adopted in 1974 and things were different then. I’m certain my adoptive parents were told to not talk about it, to sweep it under the rug and act as if me being adopted didn’t exist. So many adoptive parents weren’t given the correct tools to use so they knew how to navigate these complex dynamics of the adoptee experience.

Looking back, how I wish things were handled? 

Today I believe in my heart of hearts, my adoptive parents didn’t have a CLUE of what they were doing. I don’t think adoption agencies or adoption attorneys are preparing adoptive parents for the TRUTH, and how to navigate it as making money trumps everything in that arena.

I think the deception regarding lying to me my whole life is a way my adoptive mom was able to stall me from finding my truth. But let me just tell you, there were consequences for that. I never trusted her again, and I’ve always felt like she adopted me for her needs, not mine. This has impacted every area of my life, still to this day!  I was a pawn to fulfill her void because she couldn’t have children of her own. I would like to encourage anyone dealing with infertility issues, please seek help on your own. Don’t make your adopted child fill your void. 

I wish more conversations were opened at that moment I found out I was adopted in 1979 and moving forward.

I wish our conversation would have went like this. 

Me: Mommy, Did I come out of your belly like the lady on the television?

Adoptive Mom: No honey, you came out of another lady’s belly. She was unable to take care of you, so she decided to have someone else parent you and that someone else was your dad and me. No, she loved you and gave you away. No, you were my biggest gift because I couldn’t parent or have kids of my own!

Me: Who is she? Where is she?

Adoptive Mom: Because you were adopted, when you are old enough, we will do everything in our power to help you try to find her. Helping your adopted child search and find their biological parents means everything! Support us!

Me: I want to find her now.

Adoptive Mom: We can’t find her until you are 18, but it’s okay to be sad you lost her. It’s okay to love her and want to find her. You lost the most important woman of your life, and it’s okay to feel sad for losing her. Would you like to talk about it? How are you feeling about this? Open these conversations and never stop!

Repeat, Repeat, Repeat

No one has ever asked me how it feels to be adopted!

Me: Weeping, my grieving starts at 5 years old because I have every reason to be sad for losing the woman who carried me in her belly for 9 months and who brought me into the world. Regardless of whose dreams she made come true to be parents. Regardless of how much LOVE she thought I was going to have in this “BETTER LIFE” I was promised. Regardless of how happy my adoptive parents were to be parents, and their dreams coming true, I still deserved the right to grieve my losses as soon as I discovered them.

The catch is, I was 5 years old. I didn’t know how to do this. I needed my adoptive parents to step in and open the dialog and put ME AND MY LOSSES FIRST. I needed them to set their dream come true to be parents on the shelf and BE REAL WITH ME!

Yes, this is possible at 5 years old. At age appropriate times it is possible to share the TRUTH with adopted children. If you can’t do this, you have no business being an adoptive parent. Period!

I would give anything if someone in my life would have sat me down and said “It’s okay to be sad. It’s okay to be mad. it’s okay to feel hurt, and broken, and lost. If I was you, I would feel that way too after losing so much!

But that never happened so at 45 years old, I have been going through the grieving process for 7 years now, all alone.

What did I lose?

My Birth Mother.

My Birth Father.

Connection.

My maternal and paternal grandparents.

My siblings on both sides.

Memories from all the above.

My ancestry.

Genetic Mirroring

My identity

My medical history.

Maternal Bonding

My peace of mind, taken by always searching for clues to my family.

My childhood, taken because I was searching my entire life.

I lost how to regulate emotions, because these are the biggest emotions I’ve ever had, and I had to keep them secret so my adoptive parents wouldn’t get hurt. This was a HUGE internal war within me. It almost killed me. Not to mention, as a child I can’t articulate how I’m feeling, and I don’t have the words to describe it.

I needed help, and I didn’t get it although I’ve been in therapy my entire life since I was 5 years old, and the THERAPIST COULDN’T EVEN HELP ME! Adoption was never talked about, and it was the ROOT issue!

Abuse of substances for 27 years took away my pain, but only temporarily. A lot happened in 27 years.

Today, I’m doing for myself what my adoptive parents and Adoption Culture didn’t do for me. I’m allowing myself the space to grieve my adoptee losses, whatever that looks like for me. Usually I run off in nature, and I cry there because Mother Nature doesn’t have an ulterior motive behind her role in my life. She want’s nothing from me. I write here on my website. I share my feelings in my Adoptees Connect group. I have ways to process, but I’ve had to figure this out alone, after a lifetime of pain.

So, I seek Mother Nature the most, as no one in this world seems to understand that adoptee grief is something I will process for the rest of my life. It never goes away. Just like grief from someone loses their mom in childbirth, or someone losing both their parents in a car wreck.

The difference is, those people are given the gift and privilege of being able to grieve their losses as soon as they happen and usually throughout the duration of their lives, it’s normal to coach them through the grief process.

Not for adoptees.

We are stripped of that privledge but that doesn’ t mean we aren’t grieving on the inside. 

We must grieve in silence, and for many of us, it kills us. I’ve attempted suicide multiple times as a adopted teen, and have contemplated suicide many times as an adult due to my adoption trauma. Mix grief, loss, abandonment, rejection, C-PTSD and the internal confliction I experience daily, it’s a miracle I’m alive and I feel the same for all adoptees who make it out alive. We also live in an Adoption Culture society that celebrates our losses and tries to talk down upon us for feeling anything less than “thankful” or “happy” about our experiences.

I’m just telling you; adoptees are dying out here and there is something adoptive parents and Adoption Culture can do about it. If you know all of this, you can’t unknow it and you can’t say someone out there didn’t share it. If you have adopted a child, please understand that this child can and will have lifelong difficulties that will need ongoing care. Please know that we never outgrow being adopted. Yes, adoption is complicated and it’s messy. No one story fits all. We know this.

But please understand that being adopted is with us FOREVER. The sooner we can start grieving our losses, the sooner we start to heal. Please understand that NO AMOUNT OF LOVE IN THIS WORLD CAN REPLACE THE LOSS I have always felt by losing my biological parents, and all the losses that come with that. Please understand no ivy league college, a brand-new car at 16 years old, or a huge house on a hill can take away these losses. We should be allowed to grieve as early as possible, at age appropriate times and this is life or death for us.

If any adoptive parents might be reading, please allow these conversations to be opened at age appropriately times. Please seek therapy on how to do this. Please don’t ignore this. Please understand no matter how much of a blessing you feel adoption is, it doesn’t change the fact that we experienced a trauma the moment we lost our birth mothers, and that trauma is compacted by pretending it’s not there by adoption being celebrated. I’m sharing here what I wish was done differently based on my experience.

I will be grieving these losses for the rest of my life, but I can’t help but wonder how my life might have been different if I would have started grieving at the moment I found out I was adopted. Please don’t let Adoption Culture deceive you, because I’m here to tell you if you ignore the grief and loss process for your adopted child, you will be sorry you did.

Please don’t mistaken this article as I’m sitting in sadness, depressed, angry or mad at the world. I was in that space for most of my life, because I couldn’t grieve my losses. But today, becaue I’ve allowed myself the space to do this, I’m healing daily and I have actually been able to find love in my life. Love for myself, love for life itself, love for others, love for all things around me. It’s almost impossible to get to the space I am, without grieving my losses. Today I enjoy life. Today I welcome my sadness when it comes, I embrace it and I invite it to stay awhile. I sit with it, I talk with it, and I process it. Then I let it go, until it circles back around again. Procesing adoptee grief is a lifelong journey. The sooner we embrace it and stop running from it, the sooner we start to heal.

 If you’ve made it this far, I commend you.

Adopted Adults are the KEY to learning what should have been done, or what could be done differently. If you’re an adoptive parent, and you have any questions for the adult adoptee community, visit How Does It Feel To Be Adopted? on Facebook. This platform was designed for you in mind.

Adoptees, What are some ways you have been able to grieve your losses? What age did you start this process? Did anyone ever encourage you to do this growing up? Have you been alone in this process?

Adoptive Parents, where are you at with this topic? Did the agencies or attorneys give you information on how to proceed with this topic? Have you been able to open these conversations? If yes, what has that looked like for you? If no, what are you waiting for?

Don’t forget this article along with all my other articles are available in audio for your convenience, just look up Pamela A. Karanova Podcast on Google Podcasts, iTunes , Spotify. and Amazon Music. Interested in treating me with a coffee, to add fuel to my fire? Click here. Many thanks in advance to my supporters!

Love, Love

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Saying “Hello” to Adoptee Grief & Loss

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova5 Comments

img_5766I decided to write a short article about this topic, because over the years of coming out of the fog and being in recovery it’s come to my attention that so much of the adoptee experience is rooted and grounded in grief & loss. If we leave it up to the world we live in, they not only deny us the right to have anything but positive feelings, they also deny us the right to grieve our losses.

Can you imagine everyone around you celebrating your trauma? Can you imagine living in a world where your trauma is considered something wonderful? Can you imagine always having to hide your true feelings, because everyone in your life can’t understand that adoption is complex, and in order to heal it we must feel it. Can you imagine there never being any space to share your grief & loss because in adoption, grief & loss is something we are denied, yet society tells us we should he happy about it! This is adoption in our world today.

No one ever told me processing grief and loss was a natural part of the adoptee experience. Navigating this journey alone, it’s honestly been the hardest experience of my life. For me personally, being adopted has carried more weight than multiple brutal violent traumatic experiences that I’ve had in my 44 years of life. Yes, you read that right. I’ve survived MANY brutal violent traumatic experiences, and relinquishment trauma compacted by adoption trauma have impacted me far worse than any other experience, even the brutal violent ones all put together. That’s how BIG the wound from relinquishment trauma has been in my life. The adoption trauma only added to it.

Yes, Adoption Relinquishment is TRAUMA 

For me, adoption, by far has hurt the worst and it’s had the most complex dynamics to it. It hits deeper layers, and the recovery time seems to expand throughout ones entire lifetime. I’ve accepted that full recovery is never going to happen, so I’ve embraced it and welcomed the uncomfortable feelings when they come. Multiple brutal violent traumatic experiences have healed much faster than relinquishment trauma. That should tell you something about relinquishment trauma. Real lived experiences trump everything you have been told about adoption.

It’s hard to come out of the fog on your own like I did. Seeking therapy for the complexities of my adoption experience has always been a dead end for me. I’ve tried and gone to therapy since I was 5 years old. I’m not knocking anyone in therapy and I encourage it wholeheartedly. It just didn’t work for me. I pour my heart into therapying the therapist, and leave with little to no relief other than having one hour to share my life with someone who doesn’t’ “get it” in the long run. If they aren’t adopted, they have no clue what adoptees experience. Thankfully more adoptees are therapists these days, and things are changing.  When I was a child in therapy, they didn’t even talk about adoption. When I was a teenager crying out in rage and pain, they didn’t even talk about adoption.  When I was in juvenile lock up, group homes, drug treatment, the mental health hospital as a teenager and in jail and a mental ward as an adult, they never talked about adoption. When I tried to commit suicide multiple times, they never talked about adoption. When I was in alcohol addiction for 27 years, they never talked about adoption! Let’s be honest, I was groomed to never talk about it either, conditioned from a very early age. But I hold therapists to a higher standard. All these therapists of my lifetime failed me. I should be dead right now, but I’m not.

Today, I say “hello” to the waves of grief & loss as they come into my life instead of turn them away.

Today we’re talking about adoption!

Relinquishment is is the root cause!

I was in addiction for 27 years to ESCAPE! Alcohol took my pain away but only temporarily. Now that I’m in a place of 6.5 years of sobriety, I have even more wisdom to share about being an adult adoptee in recovery. As I navigate close to 10 years of coming out of the fog and 10 years of being in “Adoptee Land” one thing that keeps circling back around in my life is grief and loss. I’m recognizing how I’m feeling at the moment and how I’m feeling day to day about my adoption experience. I’m acknowledging those feelings as they come. I say HELLO to them. I welcome them. Of course I’m going up against what our world says, which is just be thankful and grateful!

I spent some time in a religious setting, and always made me feel like I wasn’t praying enough or I wasn’t fasting enough. I even heard I was CHOOSING to hang onto this pain, or better yet “You must not be receiving your healing because you aren’t right with God! I’ve heard it all, and today I consider it all to be MUMBO JUMBO and I want no part of it. It only caused me to AVOID the TRUTH and NOT FEEL THE PAIN! Because heaven forbid you actually process your traumatic experiences, or grieve your very legitimate losses!

I’m just saying, I’ve gone around the wagon a million times trying to be HEALED from relinquishment trauma! I have some wisdom to share, that’s why I keep writing. For you all and for me. The fact is, grief and loss are perfectly normal for a not normal situation. Nothing is normal about adoption, although our society and world have normalized it. It’s NOT normal to be severed from your roots at the beginning of life, to be handed over to strangers.

Adoption is not normal, and it’s time we STOP normalizing it.

Adoption is traumatic, relinquishment is traumatic and if adoptees aren’t allowed the space to process this trauma we will continue to see the jails, prisons, mental health facilities and treatment facilities overflowing with adoptees! We will continue to see adoptees attempt and succeed in suicide. The earlier we start to address the truth about adoption, the sooner adoptees can start to process our grief and loss.

As a child, I wouldn’t have had the language to process my pain if I wanted to have it. I didn’t know as a child what I know now. I’m here to tell you if SOMEONE, ANYONE would have told me it was okay to be SAD I lost my birth mother, or it was okay to be ANGRY she left me, my whole entire world would have changed growing up. I didn’t have that language, so my adoptive parents should have helped me find it. Yeah, I know it was 1974 and things were different then! TRUE! But they are different now too, and once you know this TRUTH that I’m sharing here based on my 44 years of lived experience being adopted, you can’t unknow it. Please, do what you can to help your adopted children access feelings of grief and loss, and HELP THEM process them!

For my fellow adoptees who have made it this far, I’m asking you how you are processing your grief and loss? What have you been able to do to tap into your real true feelings? Are you at a phase where you are numbing them and running? Or are you working towards processing them?

For me, saying HELLO to my grief and loss has been a critical part of my healing process. I’m no longer running the rat race to be healed! That doesn’t work for many of us. Being SAD about your adoption experience is NORMAL. Being ANGRY about your adoption experience is NORMAL. It’s what you do with these feeling is what’s KEY. Acceptance of them is KEY.

Saying HELLO to them is acknowledging them. Sitting with them awhile, writing about them, or sharing them with someone you love or trust is processing them. Getting alone in nature, doing your yoga, jogging, biking, hiking, and anything outside can help you release some the build up you have, and so many adoptees have anger and rage deep inside, bursting to come out. It’s going to come out in healthy ways, or unhealthy ways. What have you picked for yourself?

I picked unhealthy for 27 years, but it wasn’t because I wanted to pick it. It was because I didn’t have the tools to work on my adoptee issues. Remember, we live in a world that celebrates our trauma and celebrates adoption! This is why it upsets me when people say we are choosing to stay STUCK. Don’t you think if every single adoptee had a flip to switch, on was happy and off was sad/angry we would choose the HAPPY SWITCH? Seriously, so many of us are stuck because that was me for 40+ years because we had no tools. Thank God times are changing! –  Adoptees Connect.

The best part is, once we know that grief and loss is a normal response, and once we know it’s time to start processing it in healthy ways we can then make the choice to put one foot forward and try to walk it out TOGETHER.

Is it scary? Damn straight it is! I always say adoptees aren’t sissies! They are some of the strongest people on the planet! But I did it, and you can do it too! So my question for you is, when are you going to start saying HELLO to your grief and loss? Welcome it, embrace it and keep it moving. Only you can do this because one thing I’ve learned is that if we want something in the adoptee community or for ourselves we will have to seek it, create it, or find it ourselves! No one is going to do it for us, especially when they are so busy celebrating our trauma and they don’t acknowledge we have any losses to grieve.

It’s up to us. It’s up to me. It’s up to you.

What are you going to do?

Don’t forget this article along with all my other articles are available in audio for your convenience, just look up Pamela A. Karanova Podcast on Google Podcasts, iTunes , Spotify. and Amazon Music. Interested in treating me with a coffee, to add fuel to my fire? Click here. Many thanks in advance to my supporters!

Sending Renewed Love & Light,

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Reclaiming. Recovering. Recreating. Retreating. Repeating. 

The Gift of a Grandmother

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova4 Comments

“And one day she discovered that she was fierce, and strong and full of fire, and that not even she could hold herself back because her passion burned brighter than her fears” – Mark Anthony

I wonder if anyone who has their grandmother in their life ever wonders what it’s like to never have one? Are they thankful for her? Same for a grandfather…

I’ve lived with many types of fear in my life, as we all have but I’ve also been working at freeing myself from fear so I can live a happier more prosperous life. Some people say FEAR stands for “FALSE EVIDENCE APPEARING REAL” but my reasons for FEAR are real.

There has been nothing false about them.

FEAR – an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.

I always had a dream of meeting my biological grandmother who resides in Leon, Iowa. I found out she was alive and well in 2010 and during that time my mind has been tormented on wishing I could go see her and meet her at least one time.

I have never met a biological grandparent and she is the only one who is still living. I made 2 attempts to go see her in the past and both failed at the hands of my biological father.  He made the choice for himself to reject me after 2 meetings. At one point he promised me he would take me to meet her in 2011. I drove all the way to Leon, Iowa from Kentucky and arrived only for Him to tell me he changed His mind. He said he thought it would “Kill Her”. I was crushed, and the words “Kill Her” stuck with me all these years which has kept me away from trying to meet her on my own accord. Reality is, he didn’t want his secret from 1974 of infidelity to his wife to get out. He was ashamed and it was easier for him to reject me than face His mistakes. He wasn’t letting the cat out of the bag. I was still a dirty little secret. After all I was conceived out of an affair while he was married.

After this huge disappointment in my life I had some years to think longer and harder about Him making this choice for my grandmother. It never settled well with my spirit, which is quite fierce by the way. People can make choices for themselves but I find it totally unfair when someone makes a choice for another person, only thinking of themselves. Does anyone who does this understand they are robbing other’s of memories that can never be replaced? This has caused me more grief & anger in my entire lifetime than you could imagine, not to mention the pain from THIS played a HUGE part in my addiction issues for 27 years of my life.

Perhaps this is why TIME is so important to me?

Time Spent is more valuable than anything.

Visiting my grandmother continued to nag at my spirit.

I have felt like all these years God was whispering, “Just GO, Just GO“…

But FEAR.

Another attempt I was able to call my grandmother and speak to her about coming to visit her. She was okay with the idea, and I told her I would come around Easter 2014. I suspect my birth father stood in the way of that visit because she stopped answering my phone calls and the phone number ended up disconnected soon after. It’s hard to tell if he did it out of spite, or if it was when she had to move from independent living at her own apartment to assisted living. Either way my 2nd attempt had failed.

A few more years passed.

During this time I would check Google at least once a month, sometimes weekly to see if she was still alive all the while searching for her obituary. This is something many adoptees do, especially when we’ve been shut out.  My mind would wander about how I would respond if she had passed  away and I never got to meet her. I would visualize being really angry, filled with rage, crying and screaming, even falling into a deep depression.

CLOSED ADOPTION stood in the way of me knowing this woman who I shared DNA with. Not our choice, but the choice made for us by others.  I visualized myself having a complete mental and emotional breakdown if she had passed and I found her obituary on Google. My birth father didn’t even know I existed because of the lies my birth mother told- “FATHER UNKNOWN”. I was given up for adoption without my birth fathers consent and because of this my grandmother didn’t know I existed for most of my life.

Why should we be robbed of knowing one another because of other peoples actions?

LIES AND SECRETS ARE NEVER OKAY- EVEN IN ADOPTION

LIES HURT

THIS HURTING IS LIFELONG FOR ADOPTEES

I’m almost 43 and the pain continues.

See here- When a birthmother lies & keeps secrets.

Non-adoptees wouldn’t have a clue about understanding this.

Adoptees, I know you get it.

They always say the 3rd time is a charm, so here it is. After much praying, seeking advice and counsel from those close to me and from adoptees near and far I decided to make the trip to see and meet my grandmother for the first, and possibly last time. I knew if I didn’t just pick a date I would never do it so June 24, 2017 was the day I was driving to meet her and lay eyes on her.

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A Road Trip I Would Never Forget…

I must admit my fear was still so great. I need to share I work with elderly for a living and I have been working with them for 12+ years. I see how they sit and wait on their loved ones to come visit them. Most of them never get the visits they wait for, but they keep waiting. I knew in my heart of hearts I was going to bring nothing but love to my grandmother, but what if something more was waiting for me?

I drove to Iowa on June 23rd and was able to see and hang out with one of my favorite cousins from my adoptive family. She was definitely a light for me at this emotional time. She took me to her dads flower farm and he helped me hand pick a special bouquet of flowers to take to my grandmother the next morning. It was beautiful to be able to do this. As the evening of June 23rd hit and I was ready to go to sleep the racing increased and thoughts of “What if…” took over my mind. I actually ended up taking something to help me sleep because I knew if I didn’t I wouldn’t sleep at all. My mind was racing with thoughts like, “What if they have me on the block list and I can’t see her?” or “What if my birth father is there and he throws me out?”. The fear wasn’t from God. I know this but it took over and it was extremely difficult for me to move through the fear and do this anyway.

At 6:15AM on Saturday June 24th my alarm went off. 

Today was the day I had waited for for YEARS!

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I was all the way across the country and I was going to meet my biological grandmother for the first time. No, she didn’t know I was coming. I woke up and started to get ready. My anxiety was through the roof, and more fear was setting in. My stomach started to hurt and it felt like it was in knots.

The FEAR was so great at one point I almost said “Forget it”.  I almost didn’t go, even after I drove all the way to Iowa FOR THIS. This might sound crazy but it was like God was giving me the PUSH to just do it and push through my fear and go anyway. I seriously couldn’t have done it without God in my life.

My cousin said, “There is no way I would do what you are about to do!”.

“Her soul is fierce, her heart is brave, her mind is strong” – R.H. Sin

I continued on, packed up my car and left Iowa City, Iowa about 7:30AM. Leon, IA was 3 hours south of Iowa City< IA so I had another 3 hour drive to get to the nursing home my grandmother was at. That drive seemed like a 100 hour drive. My mind was racing on what I was going to do if my birth father was there, or another family member. Not one of them has been accepting to me. I’ve only received rejection from my birth fathers entire family so what would be different about my grandmother? Would she reject me too? Had my birth father ever talked to her about me? I actually talked to her on the phone 2x over the years and shared with her who I was but it’s hard to tell if she really understood what I was saying, but if I was to guess she received a pretty big clue I was her granddaughter.

The closer I got to Leon, Iowa the the more nervous I became. At one point I almost vomited when I stopped to use the restroom. The feeling I had is hard to describe but I was able to make a connection to this feeling is the same way I felt as a child when I was in and out of the hospital for stomach aches. SAME EXACT FEELING! I’ve heard lots of adoptees have had stomach issues! I was honestly taken back by this. The fear, anxiety and nervousness is the exact feeling I had growing up in my adoptive home which landed me in the hospital many times. I couldn’t believe that I was feeling this same way going to meet my grandmother. It was triggering to be feeling the feeling that took me back to my childhood but…

 I continued on.

I felt like God was saying “GO SEE HER! GO SEE HER!”

Lord knows I couldn’t do something like this on my own strength and will.

I was a HOT MESS!

I pulled up at the nursing home, I grabbed the items I was taking into her, hand picked

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Uncle Ed- Cardinal Flower Farm. Iowa City, IA

flowers, a card and a letter, a photo album with pictures of me all the way back to my baby years. I prepared these things because if I was turned away at least I would have something to leave her. I had been praying all morning, Jesus take the wheel of this dream of mine and guide my steps.

I walked to the doors which took me straight to the dining room. I was greeted by some nursing assistant aides as well as many of the residents. I asked politely if they could tell me which way Tenie James room was and they pointed down the hallway and off I went.

The closer I got to finding her room, the more anxious I felt.

What if my birth father was there? What if one of my uncles was there? What if they threw me out? What if she didn’t want to see me?

Mind Racing.

Nauseous.

Fear.

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I quickly found her room with her name on the door. There was no turning back now. I knocked softly, then I turned the door knob and slowly opened the door. I peeked my head inside and saw the sweetest little lady who was relaxing in her automated recliner. I smiled big, and she smiled back. She saw the flowers and my smile and I’m pretty sure it was a comfort to her. Lord knows, all I wanted to do was bring her peace, love and comfort. As I opened the door further, I realized she was all alone and no one else was in the room with her. All the fear that has tormented me all these years and up until this moment lifted off me, and God’s presence was all over that place. I continued to walk slowly towards her.  I shut the door behind me so we could have some privacy and let her know I brought her some flowers and wanted to introduce myself.

“Be the light for all to see”- Matthew 5:16

I got down on the floor so I could be close to her, I held her hand and I said, “Hi there, I wanted to introduce myself, I’m Pam- Jimmie’s daughter. (Jimmie is her son) I’m your granddaughter. I have always wanted to come meet you. I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long but distance has kept me far away. (reality the secrets and lies in adoption have kept me away!)  I hope you don’t mind but seeing you has always been a dream of mine. I was in Iowa and wanted to swing by to visit on my way back to Kentucky.”

She had a smile on her face, almost as if she couldn’t believe it was anyone’s DREAM to meet HER. I pulled out a small photo album which had pictures of me when I was a baby, up until now. One by one she began to look at the pictures. She didn’t turn them fast, she was taking her time. She smiled at many of them and when she made it to the last page, she said “Where is this?”.  The photo was of me sitting by a waterfall in Kentucky and I let her know I had to hike many miles to reach it and that it was a hobby of mine. She said, “I love to hike too!”…

I smiled really big and I said, “It must be in our DNA” and she said “You’re right, it must”. I asked her a few questions and shared some about myself. She was a hard working woman and raised her family all while living off the land to survive. All my biological family on her side are gamers and hunters and loved nature. This makes total sense to me as to why I’ve always loved being outdoors more than anything in this world.

I held my grandmother’s hand and we compared our fingers. I began to take note of her condition, her characteristics and features. Her vision was so good, she is still reading small print books. She didn’t have any hearing aides and could hear all the words I shared because her responses were accurate most of the time. She was using a walker to walk, and seemed fairly independent. She will be 98 years old on August 10th, 2017. My birthday is 3 days after hers. She showed me a quilt she was in the process of making, bright squares of all different patterns and colors. Can you believe she’s still quilting at 97?

As I got down beside her in her chair I knew that this might be the only time I get to see her in this lifetime. After all 97 years erased off the map because of other peoples decision for my life, other peoples decisions for our relationship. I couldn’t help but wonder if anyone in the adoption equation thinks about the long term impacts about adoption trauma, separation, loss, etc. Adoption impacts every area of the adoptees life, for their entire life. Some days the grief and loss has been so great I didn’t think I could continue on.

My grandmother received my visit, it was one of the most amazing happiest moments of this lifetime. She shared about her life, and I shared about mine. She was a bit tearful in parts of what she was sharing but I just held her hand and listened to her words.

Here I was, meeting my biological grandmother for the first and only time. I’m 43, and I can’t help but share that God has always known my deep desire to lay eyes on this woman at least one time. It’s always something that has nagged at my spirit and it’s never stopped. My greatest HOPE was also my greatest FEAR.

BUT GOD…

I would like to share with my fellow adoptees reading that God knows our hurts, he knows our hearts, and to never give up HOPE in finding your family. Be persistent and don’t give up in reaching the people and places you believe are so far away. The fact I was able to meet my grandmother is nothing short of a miracle and dream come true for me. I urge you to take your own steps and making your dreams come true because no matter how it turns out it’s up to me and you. Action must follow our desires, and God knows our hearts.

If he did it for me, he can do it for you…

Dreams really do come true…

WISH

DO

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Pamela A. Karanova

Adult Adoptee

6 Years Gained, 47 Years Lost

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova9 Comments

Being an adoptee in a closed adoption, I had no idea I had a brother until 2010. The minute I found out about Him was the minute I began searching- AGAIN.  I was ecstatic about this, but where was he? What did he look like? Would he accept my children and I? Would I ever find Him?

All I knew is that I was going to dye trying. At all costs I was going to find Him. Almost a year to the date my long anticipation of waiting was over.

November 2011 I found my brother.

Greg
Greg ❤

We spoke on the phone for the first time comparing notes on our lives. My birth father was His father. After seeing a picture of Him I was amazed at all of our similarities we shared. Our skin tone was almost the same, we were both very tall with the same natural hair color and it appeared we had more resemblances than His siblings he grew up with and was raised with. After comparing some of our baby pictures we both just knew we were siblings.

There was no question about it.

For me this was an outstanding discovery but the best part is my new found brother not only mirrored me, but he accepted me. Not only did he accept me, he accepted my children. Do you have any idea how much this means when I have been rejected by both my biological parents and their families?

THIS HAS MEANT EVERYTHING TO ME!

I was on top of the world!

I told everyone about my brother and in a very short period of time in my eyes, he hung the moon! He planned a trip to spend Christmas with my kids and I in Kentucky and we met for the first time December 24, 2011. It was a dream come true for me. This would be the first holiday in my life I spent with biological family.  We sat at the table and talked for hours and hours. We both agreed we had a lot of making up to do.

I always told everyone He was the pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow for me and God always saves the best for last.

Greg will always be my pot of Gold & my TREASURE in my adoption journey!

My First Trip To Texas 2014
Greg & I -Texas 2014

Over the last 6 years we made many memories together. Greg flew to KY 2x to share Christmas with my children and I. We visited Texas 2x to attend His Annual Craw-fish Boil in 2014 and in 2015 I attended my very first Thanksgiving Dinner with Him. This was an amazing experience. Family gathering around to celebrate all things, especially one another. There aren’t enough words to express How wonderful Greg and His entire family has been to my children and I. I had 4 new found nieces & a nephew. I had a new sister and brother which were Greg’s siblings he grew up with.

In a blink of an eye I had a whole new family I could call my own.

Amazing.

Especially since so much has been lost in adoption.

Greg and I made a mutual attempt at having a relationship with one another from afar. It wasn’t easy but it seemed to come natural to both of us. We always looked forward to speaking to one another. He was in Texas and I was in Kentucky. He knew I loved the sunrises and sunsets so it was common for Him to send me early morning or evening pictures of the Texas sunset. This has always been a way to my heart because I see God in all things to do with nature and the sky. I looked forward to our long conversations on the phone catching up on how things have changed from the last time we spoke.  Greg was always a breath of fresh air in my life. He was a big brother who gave me advice when I needed it, and listened when he needed a listener. He was an awesome dad, and an outstanding human being who would have done anything for anyone. Our similarities were astonishing at times. We both loved nature and hiking. He gave me great advice on many areas including the best supplements to take, hiking safe, how to check for ticks (lol), and so much more. At the end of every conversation we never hesitated to tell one another we loved each other.

Until Next Time…

Greg, ” I love you, Sis!”

Me, ” I love you too! We will talk soon!”

You see as an adoptee, I don’t tell people “bye”.

I say “I’ll talk to you soon”.

I know my fellow adoptees get it.

May 21st 2017 I received some tragic information that Greg was in an early morning motorcycle accident. He was going 60MPH on a Texas road and hit a cow that was laying in the middle or the road. His brain damage was so sever he was put on life support and the doctors didn’t think he was going to make it. Greg fought for His life for the next 3 days and on May 24, 2017 He went home to be with the Lord.

My heart is broken.

Not many non-adoptees get it but my fellow adoptees can understand the pain associated with something like this. Waiting our entire lives to find our people, and the emotions attached to having to search for them daily our entire lives. The pain attached to our never ending journey of wanting to fit in somewhere with our people. The roller coaster ride that comes with reunions. I remember visiting Greg and going to the bedroom to cry many times because I was so ANGRY I missed so many years with my brother! The grief of missing so much of Him in my life was inconsolable at times! I tried my best to hide it from everyone, but it would overtake my mind and I just couldn’t shake it sometimes. It sent me into depression episodes many times over the years.

How could I have a brother so amazing SOMEWHERE OUT THERE IN THE WORLD and because of the secrets & lies in adoption I had no clue he existed and he had no clue I existed? I was given up for adoption in 1974 without my birth fathers consent as if he didn’t exist- bullshit! And it’s still happening today in 2017!  I’m not gonna lie, I’ve struggled with this and struggled a lot. As if anyone in the adoption “triad” doesn’t ever think of these things? Birth father’s have rights too! I would have known about my brother much sooner if it wasn’t for the secrets & lies in adoption!

ADOPTION IMPACTS ADOPTEES FOREVER!

IT NEVER GOES AWAY!

PLEASE BELIEVE IT!

Because we didn’t know about one another until 2011 I only got 6 amazing years with my brother. I’m crushed and most people that aren’t adopted simply don’t get all the dynamics of it all. Honestly, I’m thankful they don’t. Means they don’t know what this pain feels like. Please don’t mistake me sharing my feelings here as not being grateful for those 6 years! I’m extremely grateful!

May 24, 2017 I was given the gift of saying a final good-bye to my brother over the phone. He was in a coma,  and on life support. They had made the decision to remove his life support because of the brain damage he suffered.  Did he hear me? I will never know but they say that you should assume people hear you because a lot of the time they do.

I couldn’t believe this was happening. My brother I just found was the same brother I had to say a final good bye too? This was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.

I sobbed and sobbed and said, “Greg, I just wanted to tell you I LOVE YOU! I’m so so very sorry you were in the accident and you are in this situation! But I want to tell you it’s okay to let go because I know this might be too much for you to hang on. Please believe we will all be okay but we sure are gonna miss you!!!! I’ve had some of the best memories of my LIFE with you and I could never thank you enough for loving me and accepting my children and I. They love you and will miss you and I want you to know you will be so missed but I will see you in heaven one day! I love you Greg”

I hung up the phone and continued to sob.

That was it.

Within a few short hours he was gone.

Not enough words to express the sadness and emotions I am feeling.

Bottom line is we all experience grief & loss in our lives. We handle it be best way we know how. All the way back to 5 years old and I found out I was adopted I have been grieving the unknown. My life has been a long road of grief between searching for my way back home, searching for my birth parents, and being rejected by them both I have experienced this grief & loss my entire life. This was the main reason alcohol was my escape. It did the trick, but now almost 5 years into living a sober lifestyle I am not running from the pain. I’m feeling it.

It hurts and hurts like hell.

Not long before the passing of my brother I have been writing about finding myself in nature, outside the 4 walls of the church. I have finally found my happy place and I know in my heart of hearts my brother would want me to continue to explore the world and go hiking and watch the sunrises and sunsets. He loved all these things as well! He would want me to continue to try to find happiness in the world we live in. I’m going to do that but I will never forget the brother that came into my life for 6 short years who was my treasure in my adoption journey.

47 years lost

6 years found

I will always hate adoption because of so much it’s taken from me and other adoptees. But I will always be grateful for the 6 years with my brother that some adoptees will never get. My heart breaks for them, like it breaks for the loss of my brother.

Today, I’m thankful for the 6 amazing years and I have 6 years of memories to hang onto. Non-adoptees don’t get it. For adoptees, memories are EVERYTHING because almost always we have none to hang onto, this is why many of us clench the pain so tight. There is nothing else to put in its place when you have no memories with your people! This is why there should be no secrecy and lies in adoption- EVER.

 At this place in my life the less attachments and less people I have in my life, the less chance there is to lose them. I’m just tired. Tired of losing people. Tired of being rejected. Tired of being abandoned. Tired of the grief process. It’s taken a toll on me as it does all adoptees.

At least I’m not drinking to cope.

I’m writing.

Today, I will continue to live life because my brother would want that. Last time we spoke I told Him about my bucket list of visiting all the waterfalls in Kentucky and falling in love with hiking. He was proud of me for finding something I have a passion for. Every hike I take I will take in memory of my brother. I know he’s always with me and I know he’s shining down on us all from Heaven.

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I will never get to hear his voice again, but I have 6 years of amazing memories to clench onto. Thank God for those memories. There isn’t enough material items in this entire world that is worth those memories that no one can take from me. Praise God.

Thanks for reading. If you receive anything from this post please never leave a chance to tell someone you love them empty! You never know when it will be your last time. If you’re in the adoption triad please let my post ring true to your ears and understand that adoptees experience grief, trauma, loss, sadness, pain our entire lives. It never goes away. It’s a lifelong battle. Please don’t deny us the right to grieve our losses. This is why I’ve been grieving on my own my entire life, there was no place for it when I was growing up. I could go on forever, but I will stop here.

Thanks for reading.

Pamela Karanova

Adult Adoptee

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Small Circles

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova6 Comments

imageedit_2_6710274178From this day forward I am only allowing myself to be around a small circle of people. Chances are they will be different circles of people. Such as work & personal. I know a lot of people at work. I’ve been at the same job for 11+ years. But that doesn’t mean I’m close to all of those people nor do I want to have them close to me. I keep them at a distance. If you are an acquaintance of mine chances are you know it, and feel it. If you are a friend of mine you will hear from me on occasion. If you aren’t a friend of mine you won’t hear from me.

It’s simple.

I mean no harm in sharing these things. Just being honest at where I’m at in my life. I think it’s wisdom to be cautious of who we allow in our lives. I’ve spent my entire life opening up to people. Back in my party days I was always “Party Pam”. Party Pam always went over and above for everyone because I have always been that type of person. I have always loved people. I always took pride in having a wide circle of friends. Were they quality friends? About a 1/4 of them, if that. To this day I have maybe 2 still in my life.

After my Party Pam days I started making friends at church. I’ve realized over time that was all a bunch of shenanigans. More than I want to share here, at this time anyway. God told me when I started my “Recovery Life” he was going to give me new friends. I was in fear of the old me leaving and WHO WAS THIS NEW PERSON GOD CREATED ME TO BE? I honestly had no flipping clue! Still after all these years I’m figuring out what most adoptees struggle with- WHO AM I? Crazy part is, when I hit this phase I certainly have figured out I was nothing like my biological family or my adoptive family! NOTHING LIKE ANY OF THEM.

As I began the journey of recovery I was starting a new church. Feb of 2012 things were all new at this church. I quickly became sucked into many activities, ministries, and areas of this church where God was using me for His good. I remember him specifically saying “More, More, More”. He was going to weed out my old friends, and bring me new friends. I trusted this process and will always be thankful for it. However, I was served an illusion on a silver platter by this church all while making some of the most amazing friends I have ever had. You can see there would be pros and cons to this as there is in ever area of life. There are always risks involved in everything.

By the time I started recovery in August 2012 I had new friends. I had Celebrate Recovery which changed my life. This is where things got real. I was surrounded by imperfect people who knew that in order to live in recovery WE HAD TO KEEP IT REAL. WE HAD TO BE HONEST. WE HAD TO SHARE OUR ISSUES WITH OTHERS. TRANSPARENCY WAS KEY.

EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN EVER SINGLE CHURCH SHOULD WORK THIS MINISTRY! IF THEY DID, AND GOT TO THEIR ROOT ISSUES EVERY CHURCH WOULD BE A MUCH BETTER PLACE ESPECIALLY REGARDING THE LEADERSHIP!

During the fight of my life, finding out who my birth family was and perusing them with everything I had in me only to have them slam the door in my face, all the way to making new friends at this church I was attending I can honestly say I have always been someone who keeps it real. Knowing how much the truth matters, and how much HURT comes from people NOT BEING TRUTHFUL one thing about me is I will always tell the truth. NO MATTER WHAT.

As I grew in this church, thank God He was there and he was present. I am more than thankful for that.  I grew to have this wide circle of friends. Back to Popular Pam. I loved everyone and they loved me, or so I thought. I went into this place with a pure heart, pure intentions. God showed up and showed out. I underwent a major reconstruction phase of my life. It was hard. 2012-2016 was a very heavy time because I finally started working on my adoptee issues and so much more! There were a small handful of people from that church who supported me. VERY SMALL. Let’s be honest, adoption is glorified worldwide. “She just had a bad story” is what I was labeled. I learned who I could talk to about this, and who I couldn’t. It was simple. I still wouldn’t change anything about this journey! It’s part of my story!

Over time I learned that all these “Relationships” of “MORE” really weren’t real true genuine relationships at all. They were forged relationships bombed by the “Love Team” “Love bombing is an extreme example of something that turns out to be relatively common—something I call “toxic affection.” If affection is the expression of love and fondness, then toxic affection is any such expression that has an ulterior motive.” by people who probably had good intentions. This is NOT REAL PEOPLE! It’s very deceptive! I learned that most of these relationships only took place as I passed these people by while inside the doors of the church. I learned that they actually were only REAL if I go to the same church as them.  I learned that inside the church is just as dysfunctional and toxic as all the situations I have fought to leave in my life.

So many people have said – IT’S NOT ALL CHURCHES!

IT’S THAT CHURCH!

(I will not reveal the name. I have more respect for them than they have for me or or my family!!)

I know “THAT CHURCH” served a purpose in our lives for a time being. To be honest we planned on staying there forever. You can only see and know about so much dysfunction and toxicity and not take action when people are getting hurt IN THE CHURCH. Take action meaning walk out the door for me and my family. ESPECIALLY AFTER MY KIDS ARE BEING SHUNNED AND HURT. You can play with me all day, but play with my kids it’s a different story.

Over the last year the big circle of “Family of Choice” is what they called it began to shrink and shrink. My kids apparently weren’t fitting inside the “Box” this church wanted to put them in. My kids are great kids and have always been great kids. But the moment the wouldn’t conform to be how the leaders in this church wanted them to be they were tossed out, literally. I have seen this church use a person as a mastermind manipulator to deceive the congregation into thinking they are getting “Lay Counseling Services” for FREE but this service isn’t by a legal counselor, nor is it kept confidential like others think it is. After requesting my file, they have denied me the right to my very personal information they had no permission to retrieve from me in the first place.

Who needs the drama?

Not me. Not my kids.

I am not giving up on getting my file and I’m going to request it one more time before I decide on taking legal action. I have confronted this church in an 8 page email and received one phone call by one person, it was ignored by all else involved. I shared very valid concerns and was ignored! Is that the “CHRIST-LIKE” AKA CHRISTIAN WAY TO DO THINGS? Last I knew they should have wanted to make things right. Or is that just THIS CHURCH?  So building this “Family of Choice” -(marketing tactic) all these years is only “Family of Choice” if you are doing things their way. Bringing a legitimate issue to them and you are ignored, and cast aside. Your labeled with a big fat red stamper on your forehead “SPIRIT OF OFFENSE!” and they toss you to pit. They label it as a “Spiritual Attack” yet fail to acknowledge the TRUTH in all aspects of what is really going on? I have seen no accountability at all!

You can mess with me all day, but messing with my kids is another story!

So there you have it. Small circle filled with real true genuine friends & GOD! I prefer my friends to be there for me when I’m down and out AND when I’m on top of the world. Not just sometime friends who I only see when I walk through the doors of the church. I don’t need friends who expect me to fit in their box. Sorry, I’m not ever going to fit inside anyone’s box. I am not like anyone! I am unique and set aside who God created me to be. I think so much hurt in my life by UNTRUTH has helped me realize how THE TRUTH is so important. Recovery has taught me we have to confront the truth and NOT IGNORE IT! It’s not going anywhere and I am not going anywhere!

FYI: When people leave YOUR CHURCH and you tell them “Good-Bye” I question that. If you spent all that time building a REAL RELATIONSHIP with them why would you tell them good-bye? F A K E ! !

I have so many eye openers God has helped me reveal about people and healthy and unhealthy church! THANK GOD FOR HIM! I will keep writing. My motto, people should really think about the way they treat you if they expect you to write warmly about them! My intentions are not to hurt anyone, only to share the TRUTH!

SMALL CIRCLE!

BIG CIRCLES ARE OVERRATED!

THIS IS LIFE!

Thank you God for helping me see things for what they really are! Thank you for blessing me with the real true friendships I have. Thank you for helping my family with the healing process from so much hurt!  Amen.

*I know churches are full of imperfect people. I know there are no perfect churches. I know the difference.

P.K.

 

A Reflection About Christmas

Published on by Pamela A. KaranovaLeave a comment

Moving away so my kids and I could have a better life is something my kids, thankfully will never understand. If they understood this they would have to experience all the hell I went through growing up. I never wanted them to experience these things, so moving away to protect them was all I knew to do.

I am constantly hearing many people share experiences about their families, and the good and bad times. Many times I learn of dysfunction and toxic situations that people are in while they are grumbling and groaning about certain people. Many times they share situations about family members who have “crossed the line” or “got on their last nerve”.

This holiday season I was reminded on many occasions why I moved away. To me there are so many dynamics to this. There are pro’s and con’s. The sadness I feel from having to make this choice of moving away just to have some normalcy in my life, and my kids life really never leaves. Aside from all the other adoptee issues, this sadness is always in the background lurking, especially on the holidays.

All those around are sharing their holiday “CHEER”

I just can’t wait to get on with the new year!  

I never want to be a Grinch and spoil anyone’s holiday so I keep my opinions to myself. Holidays are painful! Triggers Triggers everywhere. Everyone is talking about their families, blah blah blah…

This year was different. I’ve found 2 of my 3 amazing kids are in relationships with significant others. This brought a new spin to our holiday season. 2 of my 3 kids were able to experience a “Family Setting” from other families and it brought them great joy and fun to experience this type of “Love & Welcoming” from other people, in other families.

It dawned on me that this is something I can’t give them and I never will be able to give this to them. 

There is little ole me.

I’m just mom.

I feel terrible about THIS but no one else would understand unless they were an estranged adoptee in a similar situation. I don’t have parents that are active in my life or my kids lives. They don’t have active grandparents, cousins, aunts or uncles. I could have stayed around all the toxicity and dysfunction and everyone would have been major damaged goods, just like I was. If I stayed in the situation I was in, I wouldn’t even be able to be “Mom” because I was so broken that drinking alcohol was all I knew to numb the pain.

Of all people to know how important a mother is, I know. I know because I have never had one so I know first hand the heartbreak and loss involved in this situation I have had no control over. My birth mother rejected a relationship and abandoned me twice. My adoptive “mother” should have never been given a chance to adopt. She was never a mother. My adoptive dad moved far away and LEFT US with the adoptive “Mother” who didn’t have the capabilities to be a “Mother” and my birth father has rejected a relationship with me. I’m trying to embrace family isn’t always blood, it’s who you make it and teach this to my kids.

How can an adoptee be adopted, yet be parentless in the parent area?

Back to CHRISTmas…

My 2 children were able to experience all the fun, love and excitement of being a part of another family. My heart was exceptionally excited for them to be able to experience something they should have never had to go without. I feel guilty as a parent, but I can’t change a thing about who our family is or isn’t. I have had no control over being adopted or the family I got in this deal.

One thing I know is that I pray daily for my kids to have significant others who have big wonderful families who love them, accept them and treat them with love and respect each of them deserves. I pray they gain a wonderful family in their significant others. I pray they are strong enough in life to be able to have healthy and happy relationships around them. I pray they are strong enough to let go of all things unhealthy and toxic no matter who inflicts this on them. I want them to find happiness in life. They deserve it.

It might have taken me many years to get my “stuff” together but one thing I am certain of is that my kids have me, adoptee in recovery. Holiday’s come and go and there are constant reminders of all that has been lost in my life because of adoption. Triggers come 100 X a day it seems. Adoption doesn’t only impact me, but it has greatly impacted my children. I know on many occasions they have expressed feeling alone like I do. It breaks my heart in another type of way.  I’m their mother and I’m not going anywhere but I never can or never will be able to give them the wonderful happy family they deserve. Not on Christmas, or any day of the year. It saddens me but at the end of the day…

We do have each other minus all the family drama!

That’s something HUGE to smile about! 

Thankfully we have each other.

family

pamkids

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Adoptee Healing Tools

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova2 Comments

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I’ve been on a healing journey for 5 years.

I should be DEAD right now! 

A good friend sang this song at church today, and it blew me away!

Listen Up. It’s for you too!

“You thought I was worth saving, You came and changed my life. You thought I was worth keeping, You cleaned me up inside. You thought I was to die for, So you sacrificed your life so I could be FREE, so I could be whole, so I could tell everyone I know!” -Anthony Brown

I’m telling everyone I know God get’s the GLORY!

Over that 5 year period little by little tools that have helped me heal have been brought to my attention. I have yet to find a place where  many of them are listed in one space for easy accessibility.

 What am I healing from?  Abandonment, rejection, grief, loss & trauma from my adoption experience and from LIFE. With little to no resources available for adoptees I was on my own in finding healing tools that would work for me.  I decided I would share the tools I have found to help me in hopes these tools can enlighten and help other adoptees somewhere out there.  I have come into contact with hundreds of adoptees all over the world who are seeking  HEALING & FREEDOM. I ask them all the time, “What has helped you heal?” Sadly most of the time I hear, “Nothing!” Some are completely hopeless but I am here to give you a message of HOPE.I find it takes HOURS for me to share all the resources and most of the time I never can share them ALL.  Now they are in one spot in hopes to sharing with MORE adoptees.

 I will share by stating the tool used and how it helped me. I will also share the link where you can find this information when applicable. Please share with your fellow adoptees and in your online communities. Please note I am not speaking for all adoptees as a whole. I say “Many of us” to eliminate categorizing all adoptees as having struggles. Some of us do and some don’t. It’s that simple. I’m sharing these healing tools for those adoptees that do struggle. I will also share, this is a lot. Please take your time and know that what has worked for me might not work for you.

To my fellow hurting adoptees-

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 This post is dedicated to you! ❤

We all deserve healing and freedom & Its available to each and every one of us!

I realize not all those who might read this will have the same spiritual Christian beliefs I do and that’s okay. I love you all the same.  ❤

Last but not least, if you are NOT an adoptee and you come across this page, feel free to apply these suggestions to any area of your life where applicable.These resources are definitely not limited to adoptees only. Please share with your communities because there are adopted people everywhere who could benefit. I know this is A LOT of information. Take baby steps. One at a time. Be easy on yourself.

Blessings & Love,

Pamela Karanova

Lexington, KY

  • First Thing First- You are STRONG! Please believe and know in your heart of hearts. I am here to tell you that YOU ARE STRONG. There is not one adoptee on the planet that isn’t a strong person. What we have experienced in life is nothing that a sissy could handle. IJS! I’m so serious about this. Write it down, put it all over your house. “I AM STRONG”. Repeat, Repeat, REPEAT. ❤ 🙂
  • You are NOT Alone!- I hear this from adoptees from almost every single one that crosses my path. I felt this way most of my life. I am here to tell you today that YOU ARE NOT ALONE. That is one of the enemys # 1 tactics to make people feel alone. Well it is a lie. John 10:10 says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly”. There are an army of adoptees out here to support you! You just hadn’t found them yet. We are here. We aren’t going anywhere. Please believe you are not alone. Start using hashtage #adoptee and you will see. We are here, and God is ALWAYS with you! ❤ Which brings me to my next point.
  •  God- God and His word have been the biggest and greatest healing tool I have yet to discover. He get’s the #1 spot in my world and he always will. This means I believe GOD is who He say’s He is, and He’s going to do what He said He was going to do. Why you might ask? Let me share a little of what it costs to me ME.  If you only knew all the places I’ve been in life. By looking at me now, YOU WOULD NEVER BELIEVE IT! I was abandoned by my birth mother when I was born, I was kept as her dirty little secret even from my own birth father. SHAME & REGRET I was raised in a home where I witnessed my adoptive mother trying to commit suicide in front of me multiple times. More Trauma She also tied us to chairs with dish towels, just to make us “behave”. Prescription pain pill addiction plagued this home. My adoptive mother had  manic depressive episodes and deep rooted depression that resulted in me being mother-less even when I was adopted. My needs were never met, I was her caretaker my entire life. Until I escaped in 2005. This resulted in feeling like the mother daughter bond was always broken, because it was. I had no security or safe place. I was stuck in this home with no way out. I was angry, rage filled as a teenager and many of my adult years. Sexually abused when I visited my adoptive dad every other weekend by a older step brother.  I was raped as a teenager. I ran away as a teenager, was in and out of alcohol and drug rehab, in group homes and learned very destructive patters at a very young age by being in the streets. I fought A LOT. Went to juvenile jail A LOT. I lost a baby at 15 because of the abusive relationship I was in. I was in many physically abusive relationships as an adult because I had no self love. I had a fractured chest bone, black eyes, a broken nose, stitches between my eyes, all from men.  As an adult I was in jail for assault for fighting,  I got a DUI and I was in the streets. I experimented with many drugs in my life, but alcohol was my thing.  That DUI cost me $355.00 a drink that night! I hated the world and everyone in it. I hurt people and people hurt me. I depended on alcohol to take all the pain away for 26 years of my life. Partying was the only escape for me.  [Only sharing because I want you to see I HAVE BEEN PLACES! DARK PLACES!]  BUT GOD- God saved me!  He has RESTORED ME! HEALED MY HURT! ERASED MY PAST! I live a brand new life now. 2 Cor 5:17 He wants the same for YOU! ❤ I’ve been living a SOBER LIFE on August 13, 2012.  I have made the choice to receive my Hope and Faith from God and the Holy Spirit and HIS WORD.  God has changed my life, forever!  I gave my life to Christ in 2009 and it was the best decision I have ever made. That was the first most important step. Many of us have baggage from past life’s hurts. It’s critical to HEAL those hurts, no matter what they are BEFORE we will ever be able to live the happy prosperous life God has for all of us! We can put a band-aid on it but that’s a temporary fix. It always creeps back. Healing takes HARD WORK and DEDICATION. You have to go THROUGH the pain again but God can help you do this. The only way to receive this help is by believing in Him and receiving Him today.  If you would like to receive Christ to live in your heart it’s the best decision you will have ever made. Healing and HOPE is possible. This is the ONLY way Healing is possible in my humble opinion. After this decision, God placed other tools, and resources available for me to work on my issues but receiving Him as my Lord & Savior is the #1 tool to move towards healing. It’s not about the religion, it’s about the RELATIONSHIP.

If you are interested in receiving Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior please reach out to me! Here is a helpful link with some great information in taking that very important step. Prayer of Salvation

  • God’s Word– The Bible has been an amazing tool for me in my healing process. I know I mentioned it above, but aside from my relationship with Jesus Christ the word of God is something I have stood on. It’s brought me great healing knowing that God knows my hurt, my pain and my tears. It gives me Faith and Hope that in His word he says we will all be healed and made whole AND he knows our pain. When we believe His word we must RECEIVE His word. This means everything in the Bible is true. I don’t know about you, but I’ve tried EVERYTHING this world has to offer to fill the void, ease the pain, numb my soul. Sex, drugs, alcohol, people, places and things; NOTHING has been  fulfilling aside from God and His word. The more you dive into the word, even when you don’t understand it the more you will begin to understand it. Here is a link to purchase a Bible that I have found to understand the best- The Message Version. The Message Bible The other GREAT thing, You can find this same version for FREE on the Bible App. Here is the link. The Bible App They even have audio! 🙂
  • Prayer- Prayer is simple. It’s communication with God. Sometimes pictures are painted where you have to pray a certain place and a certain way but God wants a relationship with you SO BAD, he will take prayer any way any time of day.  Prayer is very important. We must give God thanks through our prayers, share our hearts desires, what we are believing for and pray for others and our world. There really is no right or wrong way. Prayer has been a major healing tool for me and IT WORKS! Here is an article I found extremely helpful and it’s from the legendary Billy Graham. This will give you some more details on how to communicate with God. How Do I Talk To God?
  • Church Home- One of the most amazing healing tools I have found so far aside from the 3 listed above is my church. My church is a safe place for me. I am not a religious person, nor do I participate in any denomination. I believe religion separates and divides, that is not of God. IMHO My church is a place filled with love and most importantly God and the Holy Spirit. If you aren’t at a church where you have the presence of the Holy Spirit I am here to tell you that you are missing out on something more than wonderful! I don’t attend church for anyone other than God because I want to honor Him, and grow closer to Him and receive His word. I love my Pastor Marion Dalton and because of all His sermons I have finally been able to see things in a different light than what I ever have before. I am so thankful for my church and my pastor! If you don’t have a church home, I truly believe it will be an amazing healing place for you. It only takes some action on your part. I used to be one of the lukewarm Christians and I said, “Oh, I don’t need to go to church to have a relationship with God!” I am here to say it’s almost impossible to have a growing relationship with God and flourish in his Kingdom if we don’t find a church and attend and learn and grow. The Bible says the Church is the Bride of Christ so I KNOW the CHURCH is very important to God. We must go to honor Him and get planted so we can grow. The alternative is to become stagnant and not be rooted anywhere. When the crap hits the fan the devil will have a field day with us. So IMHO Church is extremely important and it’s a Hospital for the hurting people. IT IS A HEALING PLACE!  We’re ALL hurting people! ❤
  • Church Family- I know, I know.. All this churchy Christian advice. I promised I would tell you what has worked for me. ALL OF IT. So this is what has worked for me. These things have brought me healing. If you have never had a real true church family I promise you that you are really missing out. My church family is a VERY important part of my life and my kids lives. I promise I wouldn’t lie to you. I have spiritual mothers and father and spiritual brothers and sisters. They have been there when the crap hits the fan and came through when no one else was anywhere in sight. They have prayed relentlessly when crisis’s come and I have been able to build some of the most amazing life long relationships with them and that’s a GOD SEND. A church family is CRITICAL to healing. What’s your experience with a church family? Are you searching? What kind of church are you looking for?
  • Ask for Prayer from Spiritual Warriors & Elders in Your Church- It took me years to do this. I was living in a great deal of FEAR. I guess I liked living in the pain too much? I don’t know but finally when my misery outweighed my FEAR I reached out to my spiritual momma. Deanie Cinnamon prayed over me that the spirit of unwantedness & shame be removed from my body. I had to BELIEVE this prayer was going to work. I had to RECEIVE IT. And it worked. Another time I was expressing an agony about a situation regarding my adoptive mom. She prayed the spirit of TORMENT be removed from my body. I had to believe it and it worked! When I went forward to receive prayer from my pastor I had to BELIEVE IT AND RECEIVE IT. I had to go forward, God was not going to chase me down. I share this because God gives us tools in the Bible and we all have the availability to use these tools to help hurting people! We all have the choice to go find our spiritual warriors and spiritual family and ask them to pray for us! Healing is POSSIBLE to those who believe. I believed it and it’s brought me GREAT HEALING! It can do the same for you!
  • Praise & Worship- This might be way out of the field for some people, and that’s okay. Remember, I’m just sharing what has worked for me. I have my praise and worship music on 24/7 where ever I am at making the CHOICE to tune into the Holy Spirit.  It is never turned off. Every room I am in, driving my car and even at work I listen to my Spotify Praise & Worship Playlist. It keeps the enemy at bay and he doesn’t stand a chance at getting into my thoughts as much as he would otherwise. This is a HUGE part of my life. I even play it when I go to sleep at night. Keeps bad dreams away.  I promise you it has brought me LOTS of healing, and it works!
  • Willingness & Surrender- If you truly want to heal you will have the WILLINGNESS to do whatever it takes to embark on a journey of healing. You will have the willingness to say “Okay God, I can’t do this on my own and I need your HELP! I surrender!”. We must all have the willingness or healing is not possible. For me, my pain became so great that I was desperate to do whatever it took to heal. I didn’t want to live with a broken heart my whole life.  I didn’t want to be sad forever. I didn’t want to be angry. So I had the WILLINGNESS to do whatever God put in my path and I started asking for help. Then God put more tools in my life. In order to heal the pain we have to feel the pain. This is for every hurt, habit or hang-up in life. Are you ready for that? Is your misery that bad? Mine was! I am not ashamed. I needed HELP! Are you willing to do ANYTHING to heal? Is your pain that great?
  • Faith- What is Faith? “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” – Hebrews 11:1. Ephesians 2:8-9 makes it clear that faith is a gift from God, not because we deserve it, have earned it, or are worthy to have it. It is not from ourselves; it is from God. We must have Faith that God can and will heal our hurts. If we believe it we will receive it. If you are at a place with no faith, I am here to tell you I have faith for you and I will stand in the gap for you until you are at a place of Faith. I believe we can all receive God’s healing. But Faith is a pivotal step in this process. How’s your faith these days?
  • Forgiveness- This is a major healing part of our journeys. I was angry at my birth mother, my adoptive mother and I absolutely despised 99% of adoptive parents I came into contact with. I had a deep seeded resentment against them. Why? For many reasons I won’t get into here. See Adoptees, Why Are You So Angry?  for a look at why I and other adoptees might feel this way.  I’m being TRANSPARENT here because I know there are other adoptees that struggle with some if not all of these things. I HATED ADOPTION and THE ADOPTION INDUSTRY. I still struggle with much of this today.  Hey, I’m working on it and at least I can be transparent here.  I never said I was perfect, only moving daily towards making progress. I am in recovery and healing for the rest of my life. I do know forgiveness has been a HUGE key factor in my healing. WE HAVE TO FORGIVE! Have you read the links where unforgiveness and bitterness is linked to CANCER and SICKNESS?  Read This: The Deadly Consequences of Unforgiveness Not to mention the Bible commands us to forgive others as Christ has forgiven us. WE MUST FORGIVE. Here is an EXCELLENT and highly recommended article on Forgiveness and what it means.
  • Acceptance- Have you accepted LIFE on LIFE’S terms? When we can’t accept things for what they are, we don’t truly process the emotions that go along with whatever it is we need to accept.  In order to TRULY FEEL IT TO HEAL IT. I had to accept it. It HURT but this was a KEY STEP in my healing process. No matter what happened in the past I can’t change the fact that I was adopted, or anything else for that matter. I would give anything to be NOT adopted but that’s impossible. I spent most of my life HATING it and being ANGRY and still feel that way sometimes.But my hate was/is only hurting myself and I didn’t want to carry that burden anymore. Adoption is rooted and grounded in LOSS then comes GRIEF and TRAUMA. It happened. The sooner we can accept it is a part of our lives and there is NOTHING we can do to change it the sooner we can move forward to heal from the pain adoption has caused. This promotes healing. Where are you on this topic?
  • Putting it on the SHELF- What in the world could this mean? LOL Well… I have a analogy I use. When something comes my way and I have no control over it and I can’t change it I take it and I visually put it up on the shelf. I do this daily, sometimes hourly!  It’s an imaginary shelf don’t judge me!  but for whatever reason the visualization of doing this HELPS ME A LOT. Why a shelf? Well the shelf is me giving it to God. I put it up there, it never gets filled up but it keeps going higher and higher and higher. I put “things” on the shelf ALL THE TIME! Things meaning issues, people, hurt feelings, decisions I can’t make, things out of my control, other peoples problems, etc.  Maybe another analogy will work better for you? I needed an action step behind praying and giving things to God. This has been great healing for me. You should try it! Do whatever works for you? Kick it in the closet? Throw it out the window? Put it in the dresser drawer? We are not designed to carry burdens without God helping us. Giving things to God has helped me tremendously.
  • Turning Anger into Something Positive- Anger is a natural response to many things in life. Grief, Loss, Trauma, Hurt, Pain can all cause anger. If you are quick to label an adoptee as an “Angry Adoptee” please stop. Many of us are hurting and we don’t  know of the tools to heal or have resources available. Try being understanding and listening without judgement. You just might learn something. Many people think anger is a negative force, but I must share I believe it to be a negative force when we respond to anger in a negative way. We all have a choice on what we do with this emotion. It can be a very motivating force to create change, promote healing and to push towards goals and fixing problems in our lives. We must understand that anger isn’t always bad, as long as its used for a positive purpose. I was angery most of my life, and still do sometimes but I also never had anyone pouring into me trying to HELP ME use it for God’s glory. TODAY things are different. I had to pray and ask God to help me do something positive with this anger. Many things were birthed because of this prayer and step in my life. We must find out what God wants to do to turn our anger into something positive. It’s critical to our healing process.
  • DNA Testing- The next time someone says “What do you want for your birthday or Christmas?” tell them a DNA kit from Ancestry DNA. I am telling you so many adoptees are finding out so many truths with DNA testing. I highly recommend it and found this to be an amazing avenue towards healing. I lived my entire life not knowing my nationality. I never knew my medical history. I had no DNA connections to anyone.Getting my DNA tested provided me with the answers my heart always desired. After you get your DNA testing done, you can download your raw data and upload it to Promethease and obtain a genetic testing report for $5. That’s IT! $5 can get you answers you have waited your entire life for. This brings major healing to find out our truth.
  • Transparency- Being adoptees, many of us are groomed by society in general that we shouldn’t be sad or upset about our adoption experiences. Some of us are in denial.  For many of us, there is no room for our grief, loss and sadness. Deep down many of us feel a deep unshakable sadness and a longing to know who we are and where we come from. As we reach our adult lives, many things can trigger us. Some adoptees aren’t bothered a bit, and some like me are bothered a lot. I have seen all variations. Holding things in and not sharing how you really feel is not healthy at all. Honesty and transparency on how we feel is critical to the healing process. Jeremiah 6:14 says “You can’t heal a wound by saying it’s not there!” Please believe this is true. You are not alone in your feelings and being transparent is the ONLY way you will be able to heal.
  • Celebrate Recovery- Celebrate Recovery is the World’s leading Christ-centered Recovery Ministry and it’s designed to assist someone in overcoming life’s hurts, habits and hang-ups. This means abandonment, rejection, physical, sexual, emotional abuse, co-dependency, anger, rage, divorce, sexual issues, drugs, alcohol, control, self-esteem and any other issue big or small you can imagine. This means this ministry is an umbrella ministry that works miracles for everyone. I learned that abandonment, rejection and abuse of any kind are the root issues for peoples dysfunctional lifestyle habits and behaviors. For me, being adopted was one of my root sources of pain, alcohol use was just a symptom of that pain. The difference between Celebrate Recovery (CR) and many other recovery outlets available is CR names their higher power, Jesus Christ. CR is rooted and grounded in prayer. This ministry literally saved my life! It helped me with the tools I needed to be able to work on my issues and met me with love, compassion and acceptance and understanding. You can find a Celebrate Recovery ministry near you by clicking this link. Celebrate Recovery Locator
  • Blogging/Writing/Journaling- This has been a major healing tool for me and I hope and desire it will be a healing outlet for you as well. We all need a “Safe Place” to share our feelings on how it feels to be adopted. We need our OWN space. It can be a notebook, a private online blog, a public blog, writing a book or a memoir. I highly recommend blogging. What has blogging done for me? It’s created a healing place where I can read back in time and see how far I’ve grown. I can share it with other adoptees and they will know they aren’t alone. I will see I’m not alone. It’s a space where no one can tell me how to feel this is important to adoptees! and they can’t interrupt me. They can’t silence me with silencer statements. It’s a place of control for me which is another topic many adoptees struggle with. I can control all things that go in and out of my blog and what I share and don’t share. I actually use all 3 blogging, writing and journaling as healing tools. I recommend WordPress as a FREE online blogging source and it also has a wonderful APP that is easy to use from your cell phone. Templates are easy. Please consider setting up your own blog. I also have a blog/journal that’s my communication with God. This is one of my most healing and freeing places. WE MUST WRITE!  It’s a major healing source for many of us. See the Adoptee Blog Roll here on my page. I have listed over 6o adult adoptee bloggers and adding daily!  You aren’t alone!
  • Please Understand that If Someone Isn’t Adopted, They Don’t Understand Us- The quicker we can come to a place of acceptance of this the easier things will become. I remember back when I started my healing recovery journey. I was so frustrated that I would share my experience, pain, sadness, grief and loss and all I got from those around me was silencer statements like “Aren’t you thankful you weren’t aborted?” or “Aren’t you thankful she chose life?”. Adoptees understand this is adding insult to injury and avoiding the fact that we are TRYING to share a deep part of our lives but non-adoptees have no clue how they are hurting us. What’s a symptom of grief & loss? Anger, if the grief and loss aren’t acknowledged then it can come out in anger and rage.  That said; if someone isn’t adopted they can’t understand us because there are too many dynamics and without the experience it’s impossible.  Therapist that have years and years of training can’t truly understand us unless they are adopted. Adoptive parents or Birth Parents who “THINK” they know all there is to know about adoption can’t understand us. I am not saying they can’t TRY because there are some that TRY to sympathize and TRY to understand us. To fully understand us they would have to be one of us. I get great comfort in knowing that GOD understands us and knows our pain. It’s helped me be content with other’s not knowing or understanding. This brought me healing.  Most people (not all) honestly don’t know what to say to us. They have been groomed by society that adoption is a wonderful thing and sometimes it can be  but what they fail to acknowledge is that it is rooted and grounded in loss. Many non-adoptees don’t know what to say or what to do. People want us to feel better so without understanding they are hurting us further by not just listening, but offering unsolicited advice from a topic they simply can’t relate too they try to “FIX” us. I gave up many moons ago to try to get a non-adoptee to try to understand me UNLESS they are interested and WILLING to learn. There are very few! It’s sort of like me not knowing what its like to be divorced, because I have never been divorced. I have accepted this and forgiven them in advance. It was only hurting me to try to get them to understand, and acceptance they never possibly can has brought me healing.

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  • Back to the Womb Ministries-  OMG OMG OMG! I can’t even begin to express how AMAZING this healing exercise was for me! My spiritual momma Deanie Cinnamon came to my aide one day in 2015. I was in a state of misery. I was seriously suffering from a GREAT mother wound and a HUGE broken heart regarding my adoption experience. I had this huge feeling of wishing I was never born and being angry I was, wishing I was aborted. THE PAIN WAS THAT GREAT! I had a feeling of unwantedness attached to me that I was born with due to my birth mother not wanting me, rejecting the pregnancy and handing me over to strangers to raise. I lived with this most of my life. I obsessed with wondering if my birth mother ever held me when I was born, what was the room like that day and if she named me. I wondered if she cried or if she was happy to get it over with.  I know adoptees get it. Non-adoptees can’t possible understand. To them it’s just a “CHOICE” we choose to feel this way and ponder on the negative and past. In all honesty when traumas happen some people have to go through extensive therapy to work toward healing so until that happens for many people (not just adoptees) we feel like we are at a dead end and healing isn’t possible. Depression and Anxiety can set in ESPECIALLY when we don’t have any tools or the right ones that work for us. Nonetheless this HEALING TOOL was the most amazing experience. Ms. Deanie happened to get back from a training conference for 2 Hours to Freedom by Dr. Charles Kraft. She shared all the enlightening information with me about 2 Hours to Freedom and when I told her my feelings of the deep mother wound and I just couldn’t get out of this deep dark pit I was in she shared an exercise with me. This exercise is about 15 minutes long and I kid you not, after this exercise my life was changed! I don’t want to give it all away but I am sharing the link with you because hope and PRAY you are able to get the same healing as I did. Here is the link. Back to the Womb I also recommend purchasing Dr. Charles Krafts Books Here. He’s amazing and works a lot with healing. Please let me know if you watch the video and if it impacted you even a little bit. How did it make you feel? I will write about my experience soon in a blog post.
  • How Does It Feel To Be Adopted Community- I will never forget a moment in October 2012 where I was in a small group setting and it was the very first time in my life I spoke out loud about my birth mother. As I let the words “Birth Mother” come out of my mouth I immediately began to weep and cry. Before you know it snot was slinging and I was a hot mess. I had never shared with other people how it felt being adopted and my heart break for the loss of my birth mother. Before I could finish saying what I was going to say an adoptive mom interrupted me and said loudly “YOU DON’T KNOW ADOPTION LIKE I KNOW ADOPTION!” I was floored. I was not in any shape to battle or even discuss things any further. I shut down and never said another word. I left in tears. Distraught because it seemed to me all the equations in the adoption “triangle” seem to be able to share their voice EXCEPT the ADOPTEE. Our voice is silenced, shut down, and not welcomed and we are labeled “Angry” or “An adoptee that just had a “BAD EXPERIENCE“.We are treated like perpetual children in the world for many reasons. Although this experience was extremely difficult for me it sparked me to create a safe place for adoptees to share how it feels to be adopted.  This community has grown to close to 4000 “Likes” and its a very active online community. The unique thing about “How Does it Feel to Be Adopted” is that its a “ALL ADOPTEE COMMENTING ZONE” meaning adoptees are the only ones welcome to comment because we are the only ones who know how it feels to be adopted. The world can see and read our comments and how we feel which helps them LEARN from us, but they are no allowed to comment. This is the only setting I am aware of that is set up this way. It’s an open dialog for adoptees to ask other adoptees for support regarding certain topics regarding our adoptee journeys. It’s been a MAJOR source of healing and networking for adoptees all over the world. I know this because I have received countless amounts of messages, emails and communication with adoptees and they tell me how much this community means to them and how it’s helped them heal.  The more we band together with those who “Get It” the more we understand we aren’t alone. If you haven’t joined this community yet PLEASE do so today!
  • Share Your Story on the How Does It Feel To Be Adopted Blog- We have a blog just for YOU! I created this blog because there are places adoptees have to share their stories, but there are guidelines or some are turned away. I have felt many times that being turned away was rejection and I know that hits pretty hard for adoptees. I decided to create the How Does it Feel to Be Adopted? – Blog so no adoptee is turned away. Click that link and it will take you to the about section. You will find a few very minor guidelines and what I would need. The next step is to get to writing. Your story matters and you matter. This page is set up for YOU!
  • The Primal Wound- Understanding the Adopted Child by Nancy Newton Verrier- This book is a MUST READ for adoptees. Really anyone impacted by adoption in anyway will greatly benefit but especially adoptees. I will never forget reading this book and all the “Aha” moments I had  as I turned the pages. It was the first time in my life where everything finally made sense. It made so much sense I had to put the book back down and pick it back up many times because I was so overwhelmed in a good way. When you spend your entire life not even understanding all the dynamics yourself it is extremely moving to finally have some understanding and clarity. It brought me a HUGE amount of healing. You can purchase this book on Amazon for under $10 used here: The Primal Wound- Understanding the Adopted Child
  • Adoptee Books & Memoirs- As a suggestion consider making an investment in starting a collection of adoptee books and memoirs. I have done this and not only am I supporting my fellow adoptees but I am also reading each one, understanding and absorbing each one. Every single story I have read so far I can resonate with much of it. It helped me realize I’m not alone, I’m not crazy for feeling the way I do and it gave me a broader perspective of what many other adoptees experience, not just myself. Lots of healing doing this. Soon I will have Adoptee Books & Memoirs listed here.
  • Use Your Experience to Help Non-Adoptees Who Seek Advice from Adoptees at “Ask An Adoptee”– I created Ask An Adoptee after How Does it Feel to be Adopted.  This page was ignited because we have a small population of non-adoptees who WANT TO LEARN FROM US. What better way to use our pain than to help adoptive parents and birth parents understand our perspective? We separated the 2 pages because questions from non-adoptees can be triggering to some adoptees. To create a safe place for adoptees this is also an “All Adoptee Commenting Zone”. Please check it out and read the “About Section” to learn more. If you are a non-adoptee reading please feel free to inbox us your questions. We are here to help.  Sharing our feelings and offering support to those who need it is part of the healing process. Here is the link to this page.Ask An Adoptee
  • Therapy- I highly suggest therapy from a therapist who understands complicated grief, loss and trauma and disenfranchised grief. Reach out to Nancy Verrier and she’s quick to get back to you in reference to adoptee therapists in your area.
  • Find Someone Who Will Listen Without Silencing You- I have found that through my journey most people who aren’t adopted can’t understand it nor comprehend it so when we share about it they don’t know what to say. That said, the quickest way to get out of the conversation is to either shut us down and most the time they don’t even realize they are doing it or they change the subject, or use silencer statements. THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME! But we all need that ONE PERSON or that ONE FRIEND that will listen without judgement. I had to research “Active Listener” because I came to a place where I desperately  needed someone in my life who would JUST LISTEN! We don’t need anyone to try to FIX US. I’ve found many people listen with the intent to reply and we really need them to listen with the intent to learn. It’s so frustrating for adoptees because no one wants to talk about uncomfortable topics so we shut down and keep everything inside. When that happens we feel extreme feelings that are not good. Sadness, anger, rage, low self esteem because we feel we aren’t important and our pain doesn’t matter. Anxiety and depression can set it.  PLEASE TRY TO FIND THAT ONE PERSON, THAT ONE FRIEND that will let you SHARE your heart without judgement. Ask someone if they will be your accountability partner regarding this topic. Of course if you could find an adoptee you would be winning all the way across the board, but sometimes that’s not possible.
  • Twitter & Social Media- I have a list on my Twitter of over 500 Adoptees. Why? Because we MUST connect with those who understand us and can relate to our journeys    Click Here= 500+ Adoptee List  Every time I connect with another adoptee I am able to tell them”YOU AREN’T ALONE!” I was alone for most of my life in this journey and I don’t wish it on my worst enemy. The first adoptee I ever connected with online was Jessenia Arias You can find her on Twitter at @iamadopted I can’t even express how much it meant for me to find another living human being that GOT IT. She brought me out of my deep hidden shell and taught me it’s okay to feel the way I do. We all must do this for one another. Now, I am returning the Gift God has given me in finding Jessenia and reaching out to other adoptees all over the world. You can use hashtag #adoptee #adopted #adoption and connect with adoptees everywhere. You can find me on Instagram under @howdoesitfeeltobeadopted OR @pwishes. Social Media, especially Twitter are great places to connect with your fellow adoptees. Connecting with those who “Get It” is HEALING.
  • Start A Support Group- You notice I say “Start A Support Group” vs. “Find A Support Group”. This is because adoptee support groups are very rare to find. I have searched all over my area and there are none. I haven’t even found any in my state. We have got to change this. God has given me a vision and I am in the process of activating it. He told me over a year ago that I was not only going to have an online ministry reaching out to adoptees all over the world, I was going to reach out to them right here in my own community. Adoptees Connect-Lexington, KY is in the process of being rooted right here on my own comunity. You don’t need any qualifications to do it. Being adopted in itself is enough. You understand things that no one else understands. Read this over and over and consider starting an all adoptee support group in your city. If I can do it, so can you! I believe in you!

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  • Paul Sunderland- Lecture on Adoption & Addiction- This lecture blew me away when I first watched it and continues to do so each time. It is a major eye awakening video and a must see by everyone who is impacted by adoption. Learning is healing. Here is the lecture: Lecture on Adoption & Addiction
  • Searching for Birth Families- This can be a frightening process for some adoptees. I could go on forever about this topic, but I wanted to share that every single person on this earth deserves to know who they are and where they come from. There are resources available to HELP YOU search for FREE. Never EVER EVER pay ANYONE TO HELP YOU SEARCH! Not even any adoptees. There are FREE resources available. Please reach out to Priscilla Stone- Sharp on Facebook AND Join Search Squad on Facebook. I will get a link together for some more search resources because there are too many for this space. Never give up HOPE in finding your family. In order to heal we must know our TRUTH.
  • Understanding or Circumstances- I made the choice to start researching what birth mothers, first mothers went through in the baby scoop era and the years moving past it. WHY? Because I wanted to understand WHY? Why did my birth mother make this choice? Why did she reject me after meeting her? Many of us spend our entire lives living in the unknown and many of us never have been given the TRUTH as to WHY. By researching adoption as a whole I was able to gain a better understanding. I was able to put myself in my birth mothers shoes to have compassion for her and the decision she mad way back in 1974. The book The Girls Who Went Away was a wonderful healing tool for me. It takes you through countless stories of birth mothers and the era, and how they felt relinquishing their babies. Many were stolen. Another site I recommend is [Birth Mother] First Mother Forum Healing happens when we are able to understand better.
  • Adoptees On- My great friend, fellow adoptee AND sister in Christ Haley Radke started her very own podcast called Adoptees On. This podcast is truly a gift to the adoptee/adoption community. Consider reaching out to Haley and sharing your story. Also, listen to your fellow adoptees podcasts. Yours truly will be aired sometime in November. Remember, Sharing is healing. We must share our stories. Your story matters and you deserve to be heard.
  • Write Letters to Your Birth Parents- This is a great healing exercise. Some of us don’t even know who our birth parents are, yet this exercise can still bring us healing. Share in the letter how their decision has impacted you and how you feel about it. Share your feelings no matter what they are, good or bad. You can share this letter with an accountability person, a close friend or family member you trust or a therapist. Generally, most adoptees don’t send the letters but it does do wonders just to get the feelings off our chest. I wrote one to my birth mother years ago. The emotions were overwhelming but that’s a good thing. Remember, in order to heal it we must feel it.
  • Research Abandonment PTSD- Again, in order to heal I wanted to learn as much as possible of the impact on a baby when a mother leaves us. Please check both these articles out. I am sure there are many more. Abandonment from our birth mothers is a real live trauma. The more we understand it’s impacts the more we can heal. PTSD of Abandonment Part 1 AND PTSD of Abandonment Part 2 I’m positive there are more resources out there so RESEARCH Abandonment & PTSD! This is REAL for MANY ADOPTEES.
  • Research Attachment Theory & RAD-  Many adoptees experience both or one or the other. It’s pretty complicating but there are resources available to help you understand better and learn. Learning about these things can bring healing in understanding WHY we are the way we are.
  • Process Grief & Loss- I wrote a blog post about this one time. Here it is. Grief, Loss & Adoptees This is an extreme critical part of our healing process. The hardest part for many adoptees is society doesn’t acknowledge we should even go through this process. WHY? Because the world only has room for the glorifying adoption stories. The fact is, that we have lost A LOT. We ALL need to grieve those losses. What ever that looks like to you. Everyone is different. It’s a process and it doesn’t have a time frame. If someone lost a husband or a wife in a car wreck or to a horrible disease we wouldn’t tell them “Okay, it’s time you get over that and move on!”. But people say it to adoptees ALL THE TIME, or label us as dwelling on the past. Let me tell you something no one ever told me. We lost not one ENTIRE FAMILY but TWO. Our maternal side and our paternal side. THAT’S A LOT OF LOSS AND A LOT OF PEOPLE! Take your time, be easy on yourself and know that it’s all a process and things will get easier. But remember, WE HAVE TO FEEL IT IN ORDER TO HEAL IT. What has the healing process looked like  to me? Writing, Crying, Crying and more CRYING. Talking to those who care to listen, more writing and more crying. The key is not getting STUCK. The enemy has tried his hardest to keep me stuck but he’s a lier and I refuse to spend the rest of my life grieving my losses. It’s a PROCESS. I can’t say it enough. We move through it. Read my blog post I shared above. Research the grief and loss process. IT WILL HELP YOUR HEALING.
  • Identify Your Triggers- This is something I’m working on as we speak in therapy. Not just identifying them but working on them. This is a must. It’s better when we have a better understanding of all the things I have listed in this post. When we have an understanding of WHY we are the way we are, the triggers don’t seem so bad. We are actually NORMAL for having these triggers considering what we have experienced by being abandoned & rejected. Identifying triggers is a great part of the healing process, working on them brings more healing. I suggest this for everyone.
  • Get Involved in Adoptee Rights- Be an activist! We all deserve our OBC’s and we all should be on board for equal access for all adoptees all over to be able to have their OBC. Visit The American Adoption Congress and The Adoption ALARM Network to keep up to date with what’s going on. I know there are more sites out there. These just come to the top of my mind. GET INVOLVED. Use your pain for God’s GOOD.
  • Purchase Dr. Dan Siegel – The Developing Mind- Dan covers neurobiological reasons that early trauma affects our behavior, emotional responses, and neurological connections. It is hard for adoptees to know that we have suffered a trauma, when that trauma happened so early in our lives, and most of the world doesn’t recognize that trauma. This book was an eye opener for me. It also touched on nature vs. nurture topic. Please purchase a used copy for under $5 here. The Developing Mind- Dr. Dan Siegel. Understanding brings healing.
  • Adoption News & Events- This is a very informative page that shares national and international adoption news and events. It’s wonderful to get educated and learn all the things going on around the world on adoption. They share tons of helpful information. Please “Like” their Facebook page today. Adoption News & Events
  • Being Adopted is A Piece of Who We Are, But Not All Of It- Its so easy to get consumed with “Adoptee Land”. It’s critical to our healing, peace of mind and our overall happiness that we can pull away from our adoptee lives sometimes. Yes, we will always be adopted but God has also called us to LIVE LIFE and live it abundantly. We have to learn to be on our healing journey but also take time away for our families, for our selves and those close to us. I am 110% guilty and I’ve had to learn that adoption is just a piece of who I am, not all of me.Pulling away is sometimes a healthy thing and we must all do it.
  • Understand the Way You Feel is Normal for a Not Normal Situation- I remember the first time someone shared this with me, I was like “WOW!” So here I am sharing it with you. That’s right, being separated from our first families is NOT NORMAL. Our responses and how we feel are perfectly normal for experiencing such a trauma. Please believe this and be easy on yourself.
  • Purchase Baby’s Remember Birth- I remember hearing about this book and taking a leap of purchase. I was happy I did. I learned many things regarding being born and how babies store our memories in our subconscious memory and much more. I had a deep desire to put all the pieces together all the way back to before I was born. I wanted to learn everything possible about the mother and baby bonding and what happens when that bond is interrupted. Click here to order it used for $4.00 on Amazon. Baby’s Remember Birth by Dr. David Chamberland
  • Purchase The Secret Life of the Unborn Child- This book shares how mothers can give their babies wonderful lives in utero even before they are born. So what happens when our birth mothers mentally prepare to surrender the baby? When she mentally rejects the pregnancy? All of these things I wanted too research. I NEEDED TO KNOW all the details. This book helped me heal. I hope it helps you also. Click this link to purchase on Amazon used for $4. The Secret Life of the Unborn Child
  • Live Your Life- It’s so easy to get caught up in causes, our hurts, our pain. It’s easy to consume our lives with our struggles. I know first hand because I am in recovery and there is always work to be done on SELF! It’s a non stop journey of moving forward and improving ones self. I truly understand. I now look at my life as a pie. Why? Because I view my adoption experience as just a piece of the pie. For MANY years it was the entire pie. Why? Because I was in deep grief and loss processing through things I had never even touched before. That was a GOOD thing to go THROUGH it because remember we have to feel it to heal it. Do you see the letter “through” is KEY! I spent 4 years in that process and it’s 4 years I can never get back. I don’t regret it, WE ALL NEED TO DO IT in some form or fashion. It might take you 3 weeks but it took me 4 years. But God, he has shared with me recently that he’s ready for me to LIVE MY LIFE HE HAD INTENDED FOR ME ALL ALONG. The life he has intended for each of us. I will always be in recovery. I will always be healing. But it’s time for me to MOVE FORWARD and KEEP MOVING FORWARD. My Pastor & Spiritual Father Marion Dalton confirmed what God had put on my heart about a month ago. I went up to the altar for prayer and he prayed over me. He said many things but one of the things that stood out the most was, “God said the next PATH of your life is going to be NOTHING like the first part. NOTHING! It’s going to be a much easier path!” At that moment God gave me a vision of a beautiful path. This path was long and each side was filled with beautiful flowers in a bunch of greenery. Colors and green everywhere. It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw. I could see it very vivid. He continued to pray “YOUR BREAKING GENERATIONAL CURSES FROM FAMILY YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW!!!!” It was AMAZING at the word I got that night. I am sharing this with you because 1 week after this prayer I went to a park, on a walk. I turned the corner and you will never believe what I saw….

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Unbelievable because this is the exact path I saw in the vision God gave me. SO at this point I have 2 choices. I receive the word or I reject it. WHO WOULD REJECT SUCH A GREAT GOD GIVEN WORD? Not me. Living 42 years with pain, agony, sadness, depression, fear, anger, hate and unwantedness from LIFE and ADOPTION, I am here to tell you I am ready to move forward with my life. I WANT TO LIVE MY LIFE and ENJOY the GIFT GOD HAS GIVEN ME IN MY LIFE. No person reading this is excluded from receiving the great Gift God has for you. Reach out to me. It’s time to go LIVE YOUR LIFE.

 I LOVE YOU! ❤

Please come back and share with me what has worked for you and what is familiar to you about these tools. Have any of them helped you?

The Ailing Adoptive Mother

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova9 Comments

When you’re adoptive mom is ailing and you have no relationship with her…

I always knew this day would come.

I fill with FEAR even thinking about it!

11 years ago I packed my kids up in a 22 foot U-HAUL with all our belongings and we moved across the country far away from my adoptive mom where she couldn’t spin her sick and twisted mentality on my children and on my life any longer.

I consider it an escape.

I will never forget July 2, 2005

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If you knew all I know about my life, my child hood, and the pain and anguish this lady has caused me you would consider it an escape also.

ALONE

I was alone when I made the biggest, hardest decision of my life. This one decision would impact the rest of my life and the rest of my kids’ lives. I had to make a choice. Move away and have no family ties in the state we were moving too, or stay and my kids would experience all the trauma, emotional manipulation and mental sickness that my adoptive mother is filled with.

If you are curious of all the dynamics please read The Narcissistic Adoptive Mother . I won’t go into all the details here because it would take too long.

This decision is one my kids still don’t quite understand because they escaped, and they didn’t experience all I did. I AM SO GLAD THEY DIDN’T EXPERIENCE ALL I DID! What they understand is they left the only grandmother they would ever know and one that they spent a lot of time with the first part of their lives. Because of this it has created a space of confusion for them and I hate being adopted because of this. Why should my kids have to suffer just because I got dealt a raw deal in the mother area?

Regardless, I do not regret moving them/us away so they could have a better life. I understand they might not fully understand because they didn’t experience the other side as much as I did but when I noticed my adoptive mom starting to make them rub her back, massage her body and do inappropriate things I knew it was time to go. We raise our kids to have compassion, and to be kind and to love others, especially their grandparents. Well it’s hard for them to understand and it’s something that I struggle with because I don’t ever want them to fully understand because that means they didn’t experience as much as I did. I’m thankful for that. The flip side is that in there little sweet hearts, they just want their grandma minus all the BS! It hurts them, and it hurts me to see them hurt. I had to make this choice for my kids and I and now that they are adults they can make their own choices. It was my job as their mother to PROTECT THEM. That’s exactly why I moved far away.

My adoptive dad and his wife have always lived far away and I have a little bit of a relationship with them. When I was 1 my adoptive parents divorced and my adoptive dad remarried.   As an adult in my 40’s I can’t help but question WHY. Why did he leave us with this lady and HE KNEW how crazy she was? THAT’S WHY HE DIVORCED HER! He KNEW what she was capable of, but to this day most of the trauma and drama that we experienced was kept hidden from him. Within the last few years I had a talk with him. I was curious what the beginning of my life was like. I said, “How was she as a mother when I was a baby?” If you do the research you will know how critical the bond between baby and mother is ESPECIALLY at the beginning of life. When the original bond is broken, a trauma occurs. For me, I always wondered if I bonded with her, because I didn’t feel like I bonded with anyone, especially not a mother figure. He said, “When we got the call for you to be adopted, you should have never been adopted. (He wasn’t being mean, he was just being truthful!) Your “Mother” couldn’t even take care of the first baby (my adoptive sister that was 11 months older) but she wanted another baby. She had to undergo a psychological evaluation but somehow she passed. And we were able to adopt you. After that everything went to hell in a hand basket!” — WOW. It’s unbelievable that this woman was able to adopt even after she couldn’t take care of the first adopted child.  And then my adoptive dad left got remarried and moved over an hour away.

My adoptive sister and I were left ALONE with this MANIC DEPRESSIVE NARCISSISTIC WOMAN who not only tied us to chairs with dish towels, but tried to commit suicide over and over and made us her personal slaves taking care of her day in and day out.

Through my child hood I went to my adoptive dad’s house to visit every other weekend for the duration of my child hood.  He took us on vacations; we camped and traveled a lot. He let me be a kid. He was always amazing in my eyes, aside from one thing. I remember about my adoptive dad’s house was that they have always favored and I have experienced the pain from this first hand. I was on the opposite side of the one child that was always favored, as well as the rest of my adoptive siblings. IT HURT!  I never wanted my kids to feel the pain from being favored. If you favor kids or grandkids you need to stop! It causes lifelong pain and trauma! STOP STOP STOP!  I was an adopted step child and many times I was treated as such. There always has been and always will be a favorite in their eyes, even with the grandkids. I spared my kids the pain from experiencing this and made the choice not to move where this was happening. I wanted better for them.

If we were in Kentucky all alone with no family I could protect my kids, give them a better life than what I had, no family drama and manipulation. We have a church family here. We have a church home. God has put some amazing people in our lives who are our family. We are thankful.

But there is this piece inside of me, and I’m certain my kids who are deep down sad we have no family here to spend holidays with, to have relationships with and to invite over for Sunday dinners. I still would rather have escaped than deal with the adoptive mother, but look at the alternative. WE ARE ALONE IN KENTUCKY WITH NO FAMILY. Yes, I chose that. I have to always remind myself I chose that. But I also am reminded what the alternate was…

Again, refer back to the Narcissistic Blog post.

There is no point in taking my mind to “I wish, I wish”. There is no wishing in this game of adoption. Not for the adoptee anyway! We have no wishes, no choices, and no say so. We have no rights. I had no choice in moving away if I wanted better for my kids.

Today I have 110% control over my life, and who I allow in it and who I allow to manipulate me and hurt me. I teach my kids the same thing.

My adoptive mom is at the top of the list of people who has hurt me, way before I grew up and started acting out on my pain and I began to hurt others out of hurt, anger and pain from my child hood traumas I experienced growing up. My adoptive mom is the biggest trigger I have in my entire life. I think of her coming close to me or my kids I fill with a fear I can’t even describe. The last time she was here it was literally like the devil showed itself up at my doorstep. I am not kidding either. She brought her pill addicted self to my home and tried to create drama and a wedge between my kids and I and was full force into her manipulation tactics, manic depressive episodes, and craziness that I grew up in. This was August 2012. When she left my home at this time I told her she was never welcome in my home again and if she wanted to see her grandkids she would need to get a hotel room. I NEVER want my kids to see their grandmother lying around lethargic clinging to her prescription pill bottles tighter than she is clinging to anything in this lifetime.

WHY CAN’T SHE JUST BE A HAPPY HEALTHY NORMAL GRANDMA?

I always have hope that people can change, but she is someone I don’t believe ever will. Her mental illness, pill addiction and manic depression is too severe and she has never been treated for any of the root issues regarding all these things or these things in general. Growing up I didn’t understand! Now that I am grown up I understand! She’s SICK. And in the process she has just kept destroying lives, and somehow in the middle managed to adopt 2 kids!

She always said, “Your birth mother made my dreams come true to be a mommy”.  Talk about a mental mind F$%K for a child. I wanted to know my birth mother, to see her to be near her. I wanted my birth mother to be my mother. But my biggest loss was my adoptive mother’s biggest gain. I hated her for many years of my life because of all the hell she put me through. She was never a mother, and I never bonded to her at all. She made my skin crawl and still does. I was always the one who took care of her, telling her “It’s going to be okay mommy!” as she cry day in and day out about everything you could imagine.

Let me share, I remember my entire life her having “Talks” with me about never wanting to go to a nursing home. These talks go back all the way to me being a little girl. I never understood how random this was until I grew into my adult life. One year after my escape, she drove to my door to visit my kids. She wanted to have another “talk” with me. She was only 60 years old at the time. She wanted to know if I would be her POA and agree to take care of her in her elderly years. She was trying to have this “serious” talk with me and try to manipulate me into being her POA. Does she even understand what that might look like coming from me? That’s a whole different blog post!

First of all, I have 3 SMALL children and I am a single mother barely making it back in 2005! I was on public assistance, welfare, didn’t even have a car at the time. BUT SHE- THE ADOPTIVE MOTHER drove all the way to KENTUCKY to have this “TALK” with me about HERSELF and HER ELDERLY CARE WHEN SHE WAS 60 years old! I was blown away! I told her there was no way under God’s green earth that I was going to agree to ANYTHING regarding her care! We shouldn’t even be talking about this with her being 60 years old. I was 30 for God’s sake! With 3 small children! I quickly caught on to her scheming and manipulation tactics. We hadn’t even had a relationship since I escaped! My hands were full with my kids, and I found it extremely offensive she never took anything into consideration but HERSELF.

I shut her down and her topic of conversation back in 2005. I believe wholeheartedly that as parents age, things happen naturally and one of your kids who you have a great relationship with should be the one to step up and WANT to be the POA for the ailing parents. I never have or never will expect my kids to “TAKE CARE OF ME!” as I get older! If they choose to than I would be forever thankful, but if they don’t all I ask is they make sure the nursing home where I am is providing me with the care I need, and they be a voice for me if I am unable to be a voice for myself. IT’S VERY SIMPLE but I am thinking about them and their lives and I don’t want to impose on whatever they might have going on. They might be married, raising kids, or even raising grandkids for all I know. They might be in college, or not in a financial position to take care of me. I AM OKAY WITH THAT! Truth be told, if we do what we are supposed to do in the parenting area, our kids should WANT to take care of us if they are able! We shouldn’t have to manipulate and force them at all!  I believe with my entire being that my adoptive mother ONLY ADOPTED KIDS FOR HER OWN SELFISH DESIRES AND NEEDS AND A BIG PART OF THAT WAS TO LOCK ONE OF THE 2 KIDS SHE ADOPTED INTO BEING HER POA AND MANIPULATING US TO CARE FOR HER IN HER DYING DAYS…

Not only did she get a ticket to “mother hood” by adopting, she got a ticket out of being in a nursing home when she got into her dying days…

OR THIS IS WHAT SHE THOUGHT

It has taken me 37+ years to forgive this woman. I have forgiven her back in 2012. I refuse to carry any hate towards her. I feel sorry for her. I pity her. She’s an addict and she’s mentally sick. Her doctors have completely failed her and she has manipulated every single person she has come into contact with, even churches and pastors! I have seen it with my very own eyes growing up and as an adult. I learned as a child to disassociate my child self to a grown up self. I had no choice. When I was dealing with a hysterical manic depressive “Adoptive Mother” what choice did I have?

Today, I am at a place of peace with moving away although I will always have sadness regarding having to make this choice. WHY WAS I EVEN ADOPTED IF THIS WAS GOING TO BE A CHOICE I HAD TO MAKE? I feel like an adopted orphan and there comes a lot of pain with this! Not just for me but for my kids. I still get angry sometimes knowing my kids have to experience even a little of the pain I do. I get sad, and I hate adoption because of it. Yes, I have a hard story and so do many of my fellow adoptees! But I have had to make the choice to move forward with my life! When the sadness comes, I acknowledge it because trust me, NO ONE ELSE WILL! Adoptees are ALIENATED in how we feel! There is no one to share it with aside from one another adoptee.

The point of this blog post is to ponder what to do when my ailing adoptive mother is having issues, is in rehab and she is “ANGRY” my kids or I haven’t run to the rescue. By way of a 3rd party to one of my kids her POA has given multiple messages which I believe are somewhat manipulative and of course my kids want to know “WHAT DO I DO?” At this point my kids are all adults. I do not want that lady anywhere around my kids because she’s extremely dangerous with her manipulation tactics and she has many times tried to create a wedge and start drama between my kids and I, not to mention do everything in her power to guilt my kids into feeling sorry for her. WE DON’T HAVE DRAMA UNLESS SHE’S HERE! When she rolls up it’s like my child hood flashing back accept it’s with my kids in it! It’s BAD! Very VERY BAD!

You all know I am in RECOVERY! I will have 4 years soon. Even thinking of allowing her 461b8dc93aa7a7cd596ba3b9589fde5cback in my life causes me great grief and stress and anxiety! I WILL RELAPSE if I allow her back in my life. Drinking was my escape!  Yes, I still have so many memories from my child hood that I just can’t allow her back in my life for many reasons. Mainly because she’s still extremely toxic and I have gotten SO MUCH HELP for my issues, been working for years towards healing from my childhood which she robbed from me! I am still working on myself and doing everything I can to be a better mother to my kids than what I got…

And then here she comes out of nowhere expecting my kids and I to drop our lives and come running. I am blown away! There is NOTHING I can do for her because she has done NOTHING to help herself. She is still addicted to prescription pain pills, and manipulating everyone around by her hypochondriac sickness, manic depressive episodes, sleeping all day being awake all night.

If I tap into the little girl that so desperately wanted a mommy back in my child hood I get pretty sad and part of me wishes I could do something for her. I wish she was the mother I always dreamed of. If she was a “GOOD” adoptive mother I would love to move her here, take care of her, and make sure she was taken care of! BUT SADLY I never got the mother I deserved, as many people in life don’t. I was never comforted, protected, or loved the way I needed to be loved. She said she loved me but her actions showed the opposite so I grew up never knowing what LOVE felt like. After all, when you LOVE SOMEONE “SO MUCH” you hand them over to strangers to raise?  As soon as I tap into that little girl who wants and misses her mommy, HER REAL MOMMY, I remove myself and come back to REALITY. THE TRUTH IS MY ADOPTIVE MOTHER HAS NEVER BEEN A MOTHER. SHE ISN’T CAPABLE OF BEING A MOTHER.  SHE ADOPTED ONLY SO HER KIDS COULD TAKE CARE OF HER.

What I have considered doing is that when she gets to the stage of not being able to destroy lives anymore, and when she is out of her mind I would consider it then. But as long as her mouth piece keeps running and manipulation keeps flowing from her lips I will have no part of her life. I just can’t. The first 31 years of my life were catering to her, moving her, caring for her, cleaning for her, slaving for her, everything was about HER HER HER!

Today at 41 years old, almost 42 I am putting myself first and my kids first. I have for the last 10 years and moving away was the most freeing thing I have ever done in my lifetime. I do not regret it for one minute. What I do regret is ever being adopted in the first place. I hate every bit of being adopted. I’m on the outside of 2 family trees not belonging to either of them. It’s heartbreaking

BUT GOD!

I am here and alive. I have 3 amazing kids and one of the biggest joys of my future is having my kids grow up and having wonderful relationships with them and having grandkids in the future. We are our own family. I encourage my kids to surround themselves with HEALTHY PEOPLE and HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP! I encourage them to set boundaries with people if they aren’t healthy. If people can’t abide by your boundaries you have every right to cut them out of your life.

YOU DON’T OWE ANYONE ANYTHING!!!

I DON’T OWE ANYONE ANYTHING!!!

I DIDN’T SIGN ANY ADOPTION PAPERWORK!

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I have prayed to God, asking Him if I am supposed to be the one to step up and do something to “CARE” for the woman who adopted me but never cared for me, only emotionally and mentally abused me I would like him to please SHIFT MY HEART back to the little girl who has compassion and love for this lady who stole so much. I have never felt FREER in my life than the moment I had that truck loaded, and drove all the way across the country and I had my babies with me. The FREEING feeling is something I can’t even describe. I believe the best way is the understand that I broke free from a toxic situation to FREEDOM but it was extremely difficult to get to that point. I had to have MUCH faith in God and put my hope and trust in him. When we arrived back in KY we had no home, no money, no bank account, no keys to anything, no car, no job, ONLY MY KIDS AND I AND OUR BELONGINGS! We stayed at my twin’s granny’s house for a few months; slowly God began to bless us. DON’T FORGET I HAD A LIFETIME OF TRAUMA DEEP INSIDE STILL BENEATH THE SURFACE. CHILDHOOD TRAUMAS SO DEEP I COULD MAKE A LIST! But GOD… He blessed us, I was able to get a job, a car, a place, and we have been doing well ever sense. I HAVE FINALLY ESCAPED AND MADE SOMETHING FOR MY KIDS AND MYSELF. On the outside things have been pretty good, but deep inside it’s taken me the last 4 years in recovery to scratch the surface on all the pain adoption has caused me! I am in acceptance mode that this recovery journey is going to last a lifetime and things might not get easier anytime soon. I have 31 years of conditioning I’m breaking FREE FROM. 31 years of anger, rage, hate, self-hate, abandonment, rejection, abuse, physical, sexual and emotional from my lifetime. 25+ years of my life I was a heavy drinker because I JUST COULDN’T FEEL THE PAIN OF MY PAST.

BUT GOD…

So today while my adoptive mother has fallen, gone to a rehab nursing home and she is making demands that she hates to be there and via a 3rd party is doing her best to manipulate my kids which in return she knows will get back to me I STILL FEEL NO OBLIGATION TO RUN TO HER AND START TO PICK UP WHERE I LEFT OFF WHEN I ESCAPED IN 2005 AND BEGIN TO TAKE CARE OF HER AGAIN. I TOOK CARE OF HER FOR 31 YEARS.

I am finally at a place where I am going to start living my life, all the life that was stolen when I was a child and up until I was 31 when I escaped. I have never started living life yet, and I have 3 amazing kids who are all adults now. I feel our relationships are about to get stronger and better. So far I’ve been mother and father to them, a role that is one that is TOUGH because a lot of times they don’t like me because I have to put boundaries into play. But if our kids like us all the time we aren’t doing something right! But I am already noticing a change in our relationships where we are getting closer because I’ve had to take a step back in some areas because they are ultimately going to choose what path they are going to take in life and now I believe we are going to become closer as friends, at least that’s what I feel and hope anyway. I PRAY A LOT FOR MY KIDS. GOD GETS THE GLORY EVERYDAY for bringing my kids and I where we are but I cannot and will not let the enemy come in and STEAL any more of my life than what he has already stolen! HE’S STOLEN A LOT! God is GOOD and GOOD things have happened since I escaped and he’s going to bring MORE GOOD as we move forward.

I pray for my adoptive mom and at this point that is truly what I feel God is leading me to do for her. Prayer is powerful and prayer changes things. I pray God help her heal from all the sickness she has had my entire life. I pray God change my heart if I am supposed to go help take care of her, or bring her where I am to take care of her. At this point even thinking about it causes me great stress, anxiety, and emotional and psychological wounds that aren’t fully healed come whaling back to my mind. I clearly don’t believe God is calling me to do anything at this point. She has blood family in Iowa. She has a sister, nieces and nephews; she has a power of attorney. She has friends, a pastor and the adoptive sister I grew up with has a relationship with her. So there are other people who have relationships with her who can step up and care for her.

I am deeply saddened that even from her nursing home bed she is still trying to manipulate and make others, including my children feel GUILTY she is there. We live states away and last I knew when people made responsible financial decisions in their life they SAVED THEIR OWN MONEY for their care as they got elderly. They didn’t EXPECT THEIR CHILDREN TO PAY FOR IT. She is at a rehab! The point of rehab is for her to GET BETTER and get back on her feet so she can go back home. I suspect a major part of her problem is that they are monitoring her medications and she’s addicted to pain pills. I have seen elderly in this position and I have had 31 years + experience with her addiction and I KNOW she can become impossible to deal with. She will have the most sane person in the world PULLING THEIR HAIR OUT! So she really has no say in where she is, when she is in the best place possible getting recovery hopefully going back to her apartment. Even if I went there, THERE IS NOTHING I COULD DO! I have a job, kids and a life here in Kentucky. She is in IOWA.

Today I am at peace that God is calling me to pray for peace and healing for her. I have no obligation to RUN TO THE AIDE of someone who stole so much from me. I haven’t seen or spoke to her in over 2 years aside from a brief visit in Sept 2015 and this is a view of what we arrived to, and the sad part.. She knew we were coming. Imagine being raised in this mess? THAT WAS MY CHILDHOOD…

She stole my childhood, my chance at having a mother who REALLY loved me. I don’t even know what a mother is or what a mother does?? I don’t know how a mother is supposed to be. The only way I have seen it is through others, and every time I see it I cry inside. I can’t even grasp what it’s like to have that close relationship with a mother but the closest thing I will ever have is my relationships with my kids and for them I am forever thankful. Minus having a mother, I have done my best to be a good mother to my kids. YES, I’ve made mistakes. A LOT OF THEM. But I’m trying to do better for them than what was done for me and I’m  moving forward and for once I am putting myself and my kids first. My recovery depends on it!!

I have spent the last 4 years working on myself by working the 12 steps over and over and doing so many things to CHANGE my life, for the better. I have made amends to people I hurt and asked for forgiveness as well as extended forgiveness to those who hurt me.  My adoptive mother on the other hand, is never going to change and I’m 100% positive she will die the same way she is. She’s mentally sick, she ruins lives, and her own family says she was born with evil in her body.

I wish things weren’t the way they were but because they are I feel no obligation at this time in my life to go running to my adoptive mother’s aide. I feel if she was ever in a place where she could no longer try to destroy people’s lives I might be able to consider it, meaning the later stages of her life when she is no longer able to manipulate. Perhaps she will be bed ridden, and her memory will be gone? She won’t be able to control her pill addiction, and her memory won’t remember who I even am. Maybe then I would consider it, if God calls me to do that.

For now I will pass and know in my heart of hearts I can only give what I can give and right now all I can give is PRAYER! I am only 11 years into gaining my freedom back from being conditioned for 31 years of my life, and STUCK in a toxic disgusting relationship. I’m not ready to give my life up again for someone that took so much. I’m at peace with this decision. I do feel bad for my kids who have been robbed of a happy healthy grandmother, like I was robbed of a happy healthy mother. It never leaves my mind and I have deep rooted sadness regarding this loss, not only for myself but for my kids.

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For my fellow adoptees that have been in this situation, how did you handle it?

Thanks for reading!

Pamela Karanova

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