What if our trauma didn't bother us? Josie Mi

[00:00:02] Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the Thriving Adoptees podcast. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Josie. Josie and me. Looking forward to our conversation Josie.

[00:00:12] Yeah, really looking forward to this.

[00:00:15] Now, normally it's a couple of weeks listeners between conversations with guests, you know, I meet them first and then a couple of weeks later I interview them. But today, I just spoke to Josie yesterday so this feels very fresh still, our conversation.

[00:00:31] So, if I can start with the, you know, the name of the podcast, right? Thriving Adoptees. What does that mean to you Josie?

[00:00:40] I mean, I think that adoption is often associated with a lot of grief and trauma and I think that that's true to a certain extent, to a huge extent I should say.

[00:00:56] But at the same time, there's a lot of adoptees who celebrate a lot of joy in their lives and I think see the beauty in adoption and at least that's how I see it.

[00:01:06] And so to be a thriving adoptee, I like to think that I'm walking through life and through the world celebrating my identity as an adopted person.

[00:01:17] Yeah.

[00:01:18] Yeah. And it is that dichotomy, isn't it? You know, the grief and the joy, the loss and the gain, I don't know, the sadness and the happiness, the turbulence and the peace, I guess.

[00:01:40] And so, has it, have you felt, have you come to that, have you been through some dark stuff and come out to the other side? Have you always felt like this? What's it been, what's life been like for you? Because you're still in your 20s, right?

[00:01:55] Yeah, I'm about to turn 24. I'm really grateful that I've always had a really good relationship with being adopted as that being a part of my identity.

[00:02:08] And also, I have a great relationship with my adoptive family. And they've always been extremely supportive. They, I had a really, I'd say joyful upbringing.

[00:02:23] My parents were really great about including my heritage and culture. So I'm a transracial international adoptee. And my parents were always really great about including my culture as much as I wanted to include my culture in my upbringing.

[00:02:37] So whether it was celebrating Chinese holidays, or dressing in traditional clothing, or whatever it was, they were always extremely, extremely welcome to that. And at the same time, if I didn't want to do any of those things or talk about that, they were also okay with not forcing me to do any of that.

[00:02:59] Yeah. So it sounds like they were more enlightened than many adopted parents, right? They put you in the driving seat?

[00:03:09] Yeah. Yeah. And I know that that's a complicated thing as well is having a conversation as parents of how much do you let your child lead? How much do you take charge in making sure that obviously that your child is safe?

[00:03:28] And doing your due diligence as a parent? But I personally was a very confident kid. And I always kind of knew what I wanted to do and what I didn't want to do. And so it was just a relationship between my parents and I where again, they weren't going to force me to do anything that I didn't want to do or not feel comfortable talking about.

[00:03:52] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And yet you started off with this, this, this comment about grief and loss. So how do those two stack for you? How do those two things stack?

[00:04:04] How do those two stack for you take care of? Yeah. Not two things though. So that those two sides to adoption. If you've got grief and loss on one the other side and celebration on joy. You mentioned that, you mentioned grief and trauma. So what does, what has that looked like for you?

[00:04:24] um I think that I didn't start thinking consciously about the grief and trauma until I was probably in

[00:04:31] my early teens into later teens especially like going to university I think that developmentally

[00:04:38] as a person that was when it really started coming up but I'd say that all throughout my childhood

[00:04:43] I've definitely been prone to loneliness to depression um but I personally didn't start

[00:04:51] going to therapy until I was in university um and that was less so because I felt like I was

[00:04:58] um I wasn't necessarily struggling directly with things having to do with being adopted per se

[00:05:06] but I was struggling with things personally and uh in therapy I started talking about being adopted more

[00:05:14] um because I'm gonna be honest it's not something that I talk about on the day today not because

[00:05:20] I'm uncomfortable talking about it but it doesn't come up in conversation and it's definitely

[00:05:25] not the first thing that I probably introduce about myself again not because I'm ashamed of it but it

[00:05:32] surprisingly just doesn't really come up in conversation and I don't see it as my personality

[00:05:38] or as my brand and that's really important to me is that I don't want to downplay the significance

[00:05:44] of adoption in my life it's huge um again I'm super proud of it but uh I I do have adopted friends

[00:05:52] where it's a huge thing to them and I celebrate and support that as well and they like to talk about

[00:05:58] it really frequently for me it takes a little bit of a back seat because I have things going on in my

[00:06:05] life that I've been prioritizing that feel a little bit more important to me that I'd rather be talking

[00:06:10] about but um I think that being adopted is a really incredible thing and I also have to remind myself

[00:06:17] that even though it might not be interesting to me per se because it's such a normalized part of my life

[00:06:24] that it is interesting to other people and that um they want to hear my story and uh I I feel really

[00:06:31] grateful that people do want to hear about the adoptee's perspective yeah I don't know if that

[00:06:37] answered your question yeah I I think it does um I think perhaps the the the maybe the better

[00:06:43] question maybe I can um ask the question frame the question better um so on one you you're talking

[00:06:50] about uh on one hand you're talking about pro pro to loneliness and I think you mentioned the word

[00:06:55] depression as well and then you've but you're also talking about uh joy and joyous and supportive

[00:07:02] and so how do those two things kind of coexist for you yeah I guess because you brought up grief and

[00:07:12] I guess kind of circling back to that um being an international adoptee I was adopted in a closed

[00:07:17] adoption so I have very few answers I think that being uh yeah adopted from a different country it's

[00:07:24] uh even different from uh being adopted domestically I mean we still have closed in open adoptions in

[00:07:33] domestic adoption but being an international adoptee and not uh living in the country that you were born in

[00:07:40] there's an immediate disconnect there um distance proximity and also I'm adopted from China I know that

[00:07:49] China particularly did not do a great job of keeping records or information so I have very little

[00:07:55] information about my adoption um I was adopted right before I turned one so those first 12 months of my

[00:08:04] life I have almost no records I have very I have a few documents from uh the agency that I was adopted through

[00:08:14] and when my parents went through the process of adopting me I have all of that information and I've

[00:08:20] read that information now that I'm a young adult and I wanted to access that but um if I wanted to go a

[00:08:27] deep dive into those records it's really not possible unless like I wanted to do the birth parent search and

[00:08:35] hire an organization to help me go through that process so the grief there of not having answers of um

[00:08:44] feeling disconnected from my country from my culture uh that's been a really difficult thing growing up I

[00:08:52] think that the grief that I experience is more so having to do with the loss of culture than it does

[00:08:57] having to do with um lack of answers about my biological family yeah so

[00:09:07] is it um I'm I'm just exploring this right uh so the two things coexist um because I think I might just be

[00:09:21] projecting this right so the two things coexist the the joy and the grief but let's simply simplify that

[00:09:29] down to that down to that because um you're not you're not because you're not fighting the grief

[00:09:37] because you're not I would I would feel that that's accurate yeah I think that grief is really fickle thing

[00:09:46] of um I think that grief is something that ties us all together and it's something that hits me at

[00:09:54] different times in my life uh going through different things as I get older um going having new experiences

[00:10:02] and and such but uh yeah grief is definitely something that I feel deep within me that I carry with me I

[00:10:09] think that it's something that I've maybe synthesized differently than other people because I've experienced

[00:10:17] grief in the way that a lot of peer people have experienced grief of like the loss of a loved one and

[00:10:22] I've definitely felt that but the grief of not having answers about where I come from um of feeling

[00:10:30] rejected by my birth country and by my birth culture at times um or even growing up as an Asian American

[00:10:39] person but being a minority within a minority of being adopted um there's lots of layers of grief there

[00:10:47] that I'm still working through and accepting as I get older but it it's definitely not something that

[00:10:56] I fight I just try to go with the flow and accept things as they come and also accept me as I am like

[00:11:06] I see being adopted more as circumstance and something that was out of my control something that

[00:11:13] it just simply is yeah and um so yeah I think that I just yeah I think that the best word is I just have

[00:11:24] to accept it and make the most of what I want for my own life so I find it uh fascinating this because

[00:11:35] I I I think that kind of one of one of the things I come up with is being okay with not being okay or being okay with not feeling okay right so

[00:11:46] I think I know some stuff about that right I think I've seen that for myself um and and yet I'm am I

[00:11:58] you know am I am I exploring the am I am I trying to I should have put this simplify the complexity

[00:12:08] like you know am I am I am I put am I am I in my conversations my questions to you am I trying to

[00:12:17] actually get my head around the complexity because it doesn't it that doesn't fit for me but it does fit

[00:12:24] for you you're okay you're okay with the the emotional roller coaster right and and I'm saying

[00:12:31] it should all be highs do you know what I mean or it should be one or the other yeah I'm saying it

[00:12:38] should be one or the other it should be all highs or it should be all lows and you know what what uh

[00:12:47] you know what why are you okay with the complexity that's the sort of thing that's popping into my head

[00:12:53] here I don't know does that make any sense yeah I mean I think that one of the things that has

[00:12:59] frustrated me the most about being adopted is when I offer that information to people who don't know me

[00:13:08] and don't know that I'm adopted when they do find out that I'm an adult that I'm an adopted person

[00:13:13] in my experience people more often than not project their own narrative of what that means and what

[00:13:21] that feels like to me um whether that be pity uh whether that be um they immediately try and relate

[00:13:31] it to someone else who they know is adopted in their experience or uh something something along those

[00:13:39] lines and um yeah just when people sort of project their own narrative about that it always

[00:13:46] it always makes me really uncomfortable so I think I'm just projecting my narrative on it right

[00:13:52] it should be all highs or it should be all lows you know you you we have you have no right you have no

[00:13:59] right to be okay with the duality of it so that's a really interesting learning point learning point for me

[00:14:05] uh I think about when people I when I share uh when I share that I'm adopted I if I do and like you I don't

[00:14:17] talk about it all the time with people off the podcast right outside of what I do um

[00:14:25] I don't get that much response I don't get quite the same responses as you but I think if when I'm in the

[00:14:33] adoption world and I talk about the fact that my birth mother died before I found her right before I

[00:14:42] well before I started searching for her then they there's a pity there and and I say well

[00:14:51] actually I'd had a I'd had a really big healing moment about my birth mom before I found out that

[00:14:59] she had died so it wasn't actually that big a deal for me finding out that she died obviously it might

[00:15:06] it would have been better well I think it would have been better maybe not obviously but um yeah so

[00:15:15] so uh right now there's a a a title popping into my head about what this

[00:15:23] episode what the podcast would be called what this interview could be called which would be um embracing

[00:15:30] clon complexity or um embracing the positive and negatives of yeah of adoption something like that

[00:15:42] seems to be kind of popping for me yeah I mean I think that um okay so one of my favorite poets is

[00:15:53] lems to say do you know who that is I I know who loves to say is yeah and I've heard him speak actually he's a brit

[00:15:59] right so yeah and I've heard him he's uh he was he yeah he he was a foster kid yeah I believe he grew up in

[00:16:11] foster care some kind of uh state care and uh he did this wonderful interview where he's talking about how

[00:16:20] uh uh in pop culture we have all of these characters who are uh quote unquote orphans or their parents

[00:16:28] aren't in the picture for example like harry potter I think is one of his go-to examples but he had this

[00:16:34] great interview where he was talking about how we see all these characters and the reason why they reach

[00:16:42] their potential is because they have no family or history to calibrate themselves on or to compare

[00:16:48] themselves to or to per se maybe you live up to I don't think that's always the case but um I think

[00:16:55] that that was something that resonated with me is because I don't go seeking myself in other people

[00:17:02] I re or at least I try and draw that boundary a lot of the time

[00:17:06] I don't go sorry you don't I don't go I don't go seeking myself in other people um I definitely

[00:17:15] resonate with things that other people have said or I take inspiration and I relate and I empathize

[00:17:21] as we all do but um I don't try and feel like I have to I guess find myself in in other people I really

[00:17:34] trust in who I am and I think that's why I'm also okay with a lot of the highs and lows of life

[00:17:40] is I accept that that is what most people have to face is we all have our own traumas whether it be

[00:17:48] that's being adopted or not um we're all dealt a certain set of cards and we either unfortunately or

[00:17:57] greatly have to deal with them um and I think that the set of cards that I was dealt I've looked at

[00:18:03] them and I've accepted that that that's the hands that I have and I'm like okay so how do I deal with

[00:18:11] them and play with them the best that I can yeah wow um so I just want to go back to the seeking

[00:18:19] myself in other people because uh that didn't quite land for me and then I felt that it did and I'm just

[00:18:28] kind of check it or to use your word calibrate it um so what I think about seeking myself when I

[00:18:36] when I thought about seeking myself and other people that the idea popped into my head is uh seeking

[00:18:44] myself in another in another culture or in another world and what I mean by that is people in the in the

[00:18:54] 60s and the 70s the 80s um I don't know whether people still do this right they would go to they

[00:19:02] would go to India a lot of people from the west went to India to find themselves and the idea was that

[00:19:11] uh the uh the eastern the eastern cultures that and Indian culture that was kind of conducive that was a

[00:19:22] um a culture that was more about finding ourselves um but we've we've had to move we've had to go abroad

[00:19:34] right we've had to distance ourselves from our own culture to go to another culture to to uh and

[00:19:43] immerse ourselves in another culture in the hope that we will find ourselves there yeah um is that what

[00:19:53] is is that the same sort of thing that you mean by seeking myself in other people like is like seeking

[00:20:01] myself in another culture like a like an Indian culture uh okay two parts to that yes and no okay yes I

[00:20:10] I totally understand what you were just saying um I think that when I originally was saying that though

[00:20:17] I was thinking of at least in the Chinese adoptee community there's often this story that a lot of

[00:20:25] I think Chinese adoptees are familiar with of like walking down the street and looking for a face that may be

[00:20:32] um like similar to yours uh genetic mirroring yeah yes yeah or um yeah looking for a familiar fae I think

[00:20:43] because not knowing who you're I'd say that most Chinese adoptees don't know anything about their birth

[00:20:48] families um and so looking for someone who is of kin I think is a very normal thing to desire um and I

[00:21:02] yeah totally understand that it's not something that I've felt a desire for um so I guess that

[00:21:10] that's sort of what I mean more by seeking myself in other people is like

[00:21:14] ah right okay physical thing and part of it is a cultural thing though as well

[00:21:20] because yeah growing up I really wanted to be accepted within the Chinese American and Asian

[00:21:26] American community and that wasn't something that I felt accepted into and and and at times felt really

[00:21:34] rejected by um and I think that into my young adulthood I've now sort of let go of that and

[00:21:44] I found what works for me as far as um what parts of that community and culture work with my life and

[00:21:53] others that don't um so yeah it's it's more about figuring out what works and what doesn't rather

[00:22:00] than trying to make something fit into it's it's like trying to fit a circle into a square yeah um yeah

[00:22:10] and there was a thank you for clarifying that there was a really strange irony to about what I said about

[00:22:17] the person from the west going east voluntarily to find themselves and you being uh you you know you

[00:22:27] you being adopted from from the west someone from the east to the west with absolutely no say over that

[00:22:33] because you're just under a year old right um so there was a strange irony in the idea that I came

[00:22:40] up with but um seeking myself in other people yeah I mean I think that that also irony of me saying that

[00:22:46] I don't go seeking myself in other people is the fact that I'm also an actor by trade and so um

[00:22:52] looking at that it's like well isn't that what your job is um but when it comes to my relationship

[00:22:59] with acting and being adopted I think that it's more about the the characters that I play um I don't

[00:23:09] go seeking myself in those characters it's more so me embodying them and infusing them with myself

[00:23:15] yeah yeah yeah fascinating so um what was it um you talked about feeling um at times rejected by the

[00:23:29] Chinese American and Asian American uh communities uh and uh and then a shift for that and and and then

[00:23:39] a shift happened for for you around that uh that feeling I guess can you remember that can you remember

[00:23:47] that shift was there was a particular moment or was it more of a gradual thing or yeah it was more of a

[00:23:54] gradual thing um I mean a huge part of it was the fact that I grew up in Michigan and I grew up in

[00:24:04] Ann Arbor specifically and Ann Arbor isn't like the whitest place in the world but it's still sort of

[00:24:10] middle America um so I didn't grow up around a huge Asian population um and uh versus on the coasts in the

[00:24:20] US so like Los Angeles or New York where there's much bigger immigrant enclaves uh there there just

[00:24:27] isn't that in in Michigan so um having that disconnect I I didn't have a ton of exposure to

[00:24:38] Asian culture growing up beyond maybe like going to Chinese takeout or whatever um here and there but uh

[00:24:46] yeah so I moved from Los Angeles my family was in Los Angeles and we moved right around when I was

[00:24:53] like six seven ish and um I was old enough to understand okay we just moved from a huge city

[00:25:00] that had lots of different cultures and diversity and I was exposed to all these things and um you know

[00:25:08] Los Angeles has a Chinatown and it has all of these other immigrant communities and then moving to a

[00:25:13] place where those communities don't exist and I suddenly didn't see anyone who looked like me there also

[00:25:20] wasn't as big of an adoptee community um yeah I felt like I didn't have anyone to look up to I guess

[00:25:31] um uh at times uh at times or at least people who understood what it felt like to be a person of

[00:25:38] color in a white space um I think that that was also like a very internalized thing because I definitely

[00:25:45] know that there were other people of color that I was growing up around who probably felt very similar

[00:25:50] but we just didn't uh bond over those experiences so that was sort of where I was what I was feeling as

[00:26:01] a kid into my early to late teens of just feeling like I don't have a connection to any of my culture.

[00:26:09] So why should I do any of it or celebrate any of it?

[00:26:14] And then I started taking Chinese again in high school.

[00:26:19] And I decided to do that because I was like, well, it's offered in my school.

[00:26:27] Why don't I just try?

[00:26:29] And if I don't like it, I can quit.

[00:26:33] And so I started taking Chinese in high school.

[00:26:38] I wouldn't say that I had a huge affinity for it right away.

[00:26:45] But then I just sort of stuck with it.

[00:26:48] And then I decided to keep taking it through college.

[00:26:53] And I think that that in relation to when I went to university, I moved to a bigger city.

[00:27:00] I was around more diverse people again.

[00:27:05] And being on my own and just being able to establish my own traditions for myself.

[00:27:15] All of those things combined allowed me to figure out what felt right to me.

[00:27:22] It was a reclamation in a lot of ways of, okay, I'm going to teach myself how to cook my favorite Chinese foods.

[00:27:34] And it was things like that.

[00:27:37] It was, I suddenly had a few more Asian American friends around.

[00:27:41] And we all came from different places in the country.

[00:27:46] And we all had different relationships with our culture and respecting each other's boundaries and also learning from each other.

[00:27:55] It was a really powerful time in my life to figure out what worked and what didn't and what I liked and what I didn't like.

[00:28:02] And yeah, and also not trying to force any of it.

[00:28:08] Yeah.

[00:28:10] So yeah, the word that pops into my head is freedom on that poison.

[00:28:16] You talked about freedom to experiment.

[00:28:18] You know, the experiment that you did to take Chinese at high school.

[00:28:22] Well, I know if the worst happens, I don't like it.

[00:28:24] I can just drop the subject.

[00:28:26] So I'm free to explore, free to experiment.

[00:28:31] And on that, I wanted to take you back to what you talked about, Lem Cissé.

[00:28:39] And his thoughts on that as well, which seemed to kind of echo the freedom part.

[00:28:51] A freedom from the past.

[00:28:54] A freedom from, yeah, other people's expectations, maybe.

[00:29:03] I don't know.

[00:29:05] What was it about that stuff that Lem Cissé shared that really landed for you?

[00:29:21] Was it freedom?

[00:29:23] Was it something else?

[00:29:24] Was it bits and pieces?

[00:29:25] I think that it was freedom.

[00:29:28] I think that a lot of people have had preconceptions about what my relationship with my adopted family

[00:29:44] looks like.

[00:29:46] Even people within the adoption community or other adoptive families, I think, have their own ideas of what our family is like, how we function,

[00:29:59] what that relationship should be like.

[00:30:02] And I'll say this.

[00:30:05] My parents, they are also very creative people.

[00:30:11] They're both actors and teachers.

[00:30:15] And so our dynamics as a family has always been an open dialogue about me being adopted, about what I want for my future, about whatever career I wanted to chase, whatever I was interested in.

[00:30:34] And we always were having conversations about anything that was going on, any changes that needed to be made.

[00:30:45] And when we struggle with things as a family, we try and talk them over the best that we can.

[00:30:53] And it really, I don't think, has anything to do with me being adopted.

[00:30:58] It's just what our family dynamic is.

[00:31:01] And the thing is, is that my family, we are a bunch of individuals who are compatible, but we all have our own things going on.

[00:31:10] So I love my parents.

[00:31:13] They are not my best friends.

[00:31:15] They are my parents.

[00:31:18] And we all have our own support systems and groups of friends who we go to to talk about other things or we go to therapy or whatever.

[00:31:27] We all have our own outlets, basically.

[00:31:29] And so I think that having those healthy relationships, I was always able to have the freedom to really go and discover what it was I wanted in life and who I wanted to be.

[00:31:42] And I knew that my parents were always going to be there to help me to either achieve that or just be supportive in whatever way I needed them to.

[00:31:52] Yeah.

[00:31:55] Yeah.

[00:31:55] So it sounds to me that they were and they are pretty secure people.

[00:32:05] And I was thinking about an episode of the podcast, an interview that I did earlier in the week, when that adoptee's mom, as you would say in the States, was really insecure.

[00:32:22] Right.

[00:32:22] So as given she had that insecurity, she felt that insecurity, she was trying to lock her.

[00:32:34] We say in the UK, clip her wings, clip her daughter's wings.

[00:32:39] Right.

[00:32:39] She was trying to narrow her child down.

[00:32:44] Whereas it seems to me, your parents were more about, because they had more security, felt more security in themselves.

[00:32:53] They were more about opening things up.

[00:32:57] Yeah.

[00:32:58] Yeah.

[00:32:58] So I never felt like I had to please my parents.

[00:33:03] I never felt like I had to do something to make them proud.

[00:33:08] I've maybe felt that from other people throughout the course of my life, whether it was like teachers or people I looked up to.

[00:33:16] But in terms of my parents, that was something that I never felt.

[00:33:19] So going back to what he said about adoptees finding their real potential, it's because I never was looking to my parents particularly for validation or to be like them necessarily.

[00:33:39] Even though I ended up going into the family business.

[00:33:44] Yeah.

[00:33:45] I wasn't trying to be like them or to fit into our family.

[00:33:52] Because they weren't in the, that's not what they were looking for.

[00:33:57] Yeah.

[00:33:58] They weren't looking for somebody.

[00:34:01] So Ty, the adoptee that I interviewed earlier in the week, she felt completely out of place that, you know, her, and mum said, you know, you're not what we, you're not what we expected.

[00:34:17] You know, like it was, it was as brutally clear.

[00:34:24] Whereas my own experience with my parents would be more like, more like yours.

[00:34:30] And funnily enough, I went into the family business too.

[00:34:35] So, you know, it's.

[00:34:36] Yeah.

[00:34:37] At least within my family, I always felt like I belonged.

[00:34:42] There were other places in life where I felt like I didn't belong, as we just sort of talked about within like the Asian American community.

[00:34:49] I felt like I haven't belonged.

[00:34:51] But within my family, I never felt like an outsider.

[00:34:55] Not just within my immediate family, but within my extended family as well.

[00:35:01] Yeah.

[00:35:02] I'm glad that I have such great relationships and bonds within my extended family that I've never felt like they weren't my family.

[00:35:11] Yeah.

[00:35:12] I'm extremely grateful and lucky for that because I know that a lot of adoptees, that's not the case.

[00:35:18] Yeah.

[00:35:19] Yeah.

[00:35:20] Yeah.

[00:35:20] We talk a lot about on the podcast because I mean, whenever any mention, anybody mentions the gratitude or the grateful word, right?

[00:35:29] It's like alarm bells, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, right?

[00:35:31] So I always like to make the distinction between kind of spontaneous internal gratitude and forced gratitude, right?

[00:35:41] You should be grateful because like, well, I'm not grateful.

[00:35:44] You know, it seems to me to be the ultimate denial or negation of our own feelings.

[00:35:52] And that's what, that's what riles us, right?

[00:35:56] You know, people telling us to feel a different, feel differently to the way that we feel.

[00:36:02] That's got to be the ultimate.

[00:36:06] Yeah.

[00:36:06] Yeah.

[00:36:07] I mean, I know gratitude is a complicated word and it's definitely something that I've thought a lot about because again, I think that's something that's often projected onto adopted people about you should be grateful or aren't you grateful?

[00:36:21] Or a lot of things having in surrounding the word gratitude.

[00:36:26] But within my own family, again, that was never something that came up.

[00:36:33] I've never been, you know, I think perhaps some insecure adopted parents have said that as well.

[00:36:41] You should be grateful.

[00:36:41] You know, my mum and dad would never dream of saying you should be grateful.

[00:36:48] It was, yeah, that just, yeah, they just wouldn't.

[00:36:56] It'd just be.

[00:36:57] I think if anything, my parents have said that they are the ones who are grateful that they adopted a healthy child.

[00:37:06] Yeah.

[00:37:08] Because that's all they wanted.

[00:37:09] Yeah.

[00:37:10] That's what, that's how that would echo my mum and dad as well.

[00:37:15] Yeah.

[00:37:16] Yeah.

[00:37:17] You mentioned some, you mentioned some therapy at, was that in college?

[00:37:24] Did you say?

[00:37:25] Yeah.

[00:37:28] And you said, did you say that it wasn't all kind of adoption stuff?

[00:37:31] It was some other stuff?

[00:37:32] Yeah.

[00:37:33] It was just kind of, I guess, young person life stuff of just, I found myself struggling with, I think, my schoolwork, with my friendships, with, it felt like life was heavy in general at the time when I started going to therapy.

[00:37:56] Yeah.

[00:37:56] So it didn't, it wasn't directly related to being adopted.

[00:38:01] It wasn't like all these feelings were coming up all of a sudden.

[00:38:04] And again, I have been prone to loneliness and depression for as long as I can remember, really.

[00:38:12] But I didn't start going to therapy until I found myself struggling to manage life.

[00:38:18] Yeah.

[00:38:18] And that was, yeah, when I was in university.

[00:38:23] And, but when I started going to therapy, I started talking about how I felt about being adopted in ways that I hadn't discussed before.

[00:38:38] Especially in regards to how I felt like other people perceived when I told them that I was adopted.

[00:38:51] Because, yeah, as an adoptee and being a person of color, this was around the time when Black Lives Matter was happening in the U.S.

[00:39:05] And also during COVID and Stop Asian Hate was happening.

[00:39:10] And it had me thinking a lot about how compared to a lot of people of color in the United States, I grew up very privileged because I grew up in a white family, in white spaces.

[00:39:24] There were a lot of things that I never had to think about or consider growing up in the areas that I did.

[00:39:33] And also I think how the world sees me is not necessarily how I grew up thinking about myself just in regards to safety and stuff like that.

[00:39:44] And so with those racial reckonings happening within the world at that time, it also had me thinking about my identity.

[00:39:54] And if I actually did feel safe and secure in myself, but also just walking out in the world as a person.

[00:40:05] Because, yeah, unfortunately during COVID, that was the first time that I experienced racial harassment.

[00:40:12] That wasn't ever something that I had any experience with prior.

[00:40:19] And it was shocking.

[00:40:21] It was definitely a shock to my system.

[00:40:24] And, I mean, it wasn't like, while it was a shock to my system, I don't want to sound like I was naive about it.

[00:40:36] Because, obviously, I know that racism happens.

[00:40:40] And it was definitely something that had been a conversation in my childhood.

[00:40:46] But I just never thought it would happen to me for whatever reason.

[00:40:51] And then when I did start experiencing that and discussing that in therapy and stuff, it felt like, wow, maybe I'm not who I think I am.

[00:41:06] But then, I don't know, I eventually found my way back to feeling like, well, this is who I am.

[00:41:16] And I'm going to keep moving forward.

[00:41:20] Because that's what I have to do, first of all.

[00:41:25] And second of all, I'm going to keep moving forward.

[00:41:28] But I'm just a little bit more aware of the water in which I'm swimming.

[00:41:32] Right.

[00:41:34] So, you kind of went, you went from a place of clarity to a place of confusion.

[00:41:42] Then you came out the other side and back to a bit, back to clarity.

[00:41:51] But with a bit, you know, older and wiser, people say, you know, like you had a bit more wisdom about the stuff.

[00:42:01] So, there was a questioning process and then like more of a cementing process.

[00:42:09] Is that how it was?

[00:42:11] Yeah.

[00:42:11] Yeah.

[00:42:12] I think that that's, yeah, I think that that's accurate.

[00:42:17] I am not currently in therapy.

[00:42:21] I will probably go back to therapy at some point.

[00:42:24] I don't know whether it's going to be in the next, I don't know, six months or maybe longer.

[00:42:29] Who knows?

[00:42:29] I know that I will go back to therapy at some point.

[00:42:32] I just see it more as when I need it to help deal with what I'm going through in life rather than, I guess, a consistent thing.

[00:42:43] But I think that in therapy, yeah, I don't know if I talked about grief as much as I maybe should have.

[00:42:54] But I think that for me, grief is something that I feel much more internally and within my body and nervous system.

[00:43:03] I would be interested to explore more, yeah, like body movement therapy because it's definitely something that I feel more within like my bones than I think I do being able to express it verbally.

[00:43:23] Have you got any idea why that is?

[00:43:26] I mean, I think that it's pretty clear to me that when I was adopted was before I could vocalize how I felt about it or even really consciously process what was happening.

[00:43:38] Yeah, because it's like people, it's funny when people ask me questions about being adopted and about when I was adopted because I'm like, I was adopted when I turned one.

[00:43:49] Do you remember when you were one?

[00:43:52] No one remembers when they were one.

[00:43:54] So I think it's really funny when people ask me about what is it like being adopted?

[00:44:00] And I just say, well, I don't remember.

[00:44:05] Yeah.

[00:44:05] And all I can say is I've known that I was adopted my whole life.

[00:44:11] And it's not like I have to be reminded of it because I am reminded every day by the fact that I don't look like my parents.

[00:44:20] Yeah.

[00:44:22] But yeah, I think that when it goes back to grief and trauma, that's something that I think I'll just have to continue exploring.

[00:44:32] And I don't know if verbal therapy or talk therapy is the best way for me to work on that.

[00:44:41] Yeah.

[00:44:44] It's a consistent theme.

[00:44:49] Theme probably overcooking it.

[00:44:51] That is a consistent thing.

[00:44:53] That's a thing that keeps on coming up time and time again in these interviews that we do for the podcast,

[00:45:00] is that talk therapy isn't very effective for pre-verbal therapy and pre-memory therapy or pre-cognition therapy.

[00:45:15] Right.

[00:45:15] Yeah.

[00:45:16] And it makes total sense.

[00:45:17] It makes total sense.

[00:45:20] And yet, to me, it's one of the biggest barriers to adoptees healing and thriving is that we've been using the wrong type.

[00:45:36] We've been sold, right?

[00:45:38] We've been sold or we've been encouraged down or whatever you want to say it.

[00:45:45] Because they have sold it to us.

[00:45:49] Therapists have sold it to us.

[00:45:53] And thinking, because they want to help, right?

[00:45:57] But we're barking at the wrong tree, right?

[00:46:03] We're barking at the wrong tree.

[00:46:05] So, and you talked about body movement and body movement stuff.

[00:46:10] And yeah, because one of the sayings of these somatic people is they say, the issue is in the tissue, right?

[00:46:25] Yeah.

[00:46:26] Or like the book, The Body Keeps the Score.

[00:46:29] The Body Keeps the Score.

[00:46:30] Yeah.

[00:46:30] You know, that book has only been out 10 years.

[00:46:34] Yeah.

[00:46:35] So, you know, I was talking to a Vietnam vet yesterday.

[00:46:43] And we were talking about trauma.

[00:46:45] And I said, well, trauma wasn't even a word until the American Psychological Society or they made it.

[00:46:55] They started looking at post-traumatic stress disorder with Vietnam vets.

[00:47:04] So, the idea of trauma hasn't been around that long.

[00:47:09] Yeah.

[00:47:09] The idea of, so we're talking, whatever, it's 50 years.

[00:47:15] The idea of adoption trauma, relinquishment trauma has only been around in the, since 1990, as a consumer thing, has only been around since 1993 with Nancy Verrier's Primal Wound.

[00:47:31] And the idea of body keeps the score and stuff that kept in the body, that has only really captured the world's imagination since 2014 with Bessel van der Kol.

[00:47:44] So, things have been, all this stuff is really relatively new.

[00:47:50] Relatively new.

[00:47:52] And I saw something from an adoptees talking about why, it was on Facebook, like, why do we have to, something like, oh, why does adoption have to be positive?

[00:48:08] Why does the world have to see adoption as positive?

[00:48:11] Well, it's because they believe it is positive because they haven't heard, they haven't had the experience themselves and they haven't heard about.

[00:48:27] Their worldview was solidified before the primal wound or before the body keeps the score.

[00:48:41] So, that's, they're stuck in their old beliefs.

[00:48:48] It's not that they are doing it on purpose.

[00:48:54] It's just the way that, that's, that is their, that is their belief system.

[00:49:01] Yeah.

[00:49:03] Unfortunately, adoption is something that is under-researched, understudied.

[00:49:08] And I have a lot of adopted friends who are now going into this field and wanting to learn more about themselves and other adoptees.

[00:49:16] And so, I think that it's going to be really interesting and great to see what they end up discovering and finding.

[00:49:22] And I'm really excited for them to continue their studies on those things.

[00:49:29] Yeah.

[00:49:29] Yeah.

[00:49:29] When it, when it comes to like the body keeping score.

[00:49:34] Yeah.

[00:49:35] I just feel things in my body that I can't explain to other people.

[00:49:39] And so, when people ask me, how do I feel about being adopted?

[00:49:43] I don't have words to explain what, what it feels like because yeah, it's something that just, I don't know, is ingrained in the way that I move through the world.

[00:49:54] Yeah.

[00:49:56] Yeah.

[00:49:56] But you don't seem to be particularly, to me, you don't seem to be particularly troubled by that.

[00:50:02] No.

[00:50:03] Yeah.

[00:50:04] Yeah.

[00:50:04] No, I think that.

[00:50:06] But they, yeah, but we've been, sorry, I interrupted you.

[00:50:09] No, I just think that I found, I think that I found my own rhythms in life.

[00:50:17] And I think that it also comes from, I grew up dancing.

[00:50:22] I grew up being very in tune with my own body and I know when something feels off or when something feels good.

[00:50:29] And coming from that background and also studying acting in college and having to take like body awareness and movement classes and things like that.

[00:50:41] Yeah.

[00:50:42] I know how to express myself through my body language.

[00:50:46] Yeah.

[00:50:46] Yeah.

[00:50:48] And I think that that's something that is undervalued a lot of the time.

[00:50:54] Yeah.

[00:50:55] So I can't remember the last time I heard this, this phrase, but, but, and I don't know why that really matters about the timing.

[00:51:08] But the, the, the, the phrase that came to mind was freedom, freedom from trauma.

[00:51:16] Right.

[00:51:17] So everybody wants to be free from trauma.

[00:51:19] Get that stuff off me.

[00:51:21] Get that trauma out of me.

[00:51:22] That, you know, like fighting it.

[00:51:24] Right.

[00:51:24] This, this is a really unwelcome visitor and I want rid of it.

[00:51:29] Right.

[00:51:29] And, and, and I want rid of it.

[00:51:32] So what, what is it going to take?

[00:51:34] How am I going to get rid of it?

[00:51:35] Yeah.

[00:51:35] So that, that we're, we're, we're, we're searching for freedom from trauma.

[00:51:43] What you seem to be talking about more is freedom with trauma.

[00:51:48] I've got some trauma.

[00:51:50] It's ingrained.

[00:51:51] You mentioned it being ingrained, but I'm not particularly bothered about it.

[00:51:55] And I'm not trying to expunge it.

[00:52:01] I don't think I've used that word expunge.

[00:52:04] Right.

[00:52:04] Yeah.

[00:52:05] I'm not, you're not trying to expunge it.

[00:52:08] You're not trying to be rid of it.

[00:52:12] Does that stack?

[00:52:13] Does that make any sense?

[00:52:14] Because it makes perfect sense to me.

[00:52:16] I wouldn't say it.

[00:52:17] Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

[00:52:18] I think that it's really easy for us to not want to feel anything.

[00:52:30] To turn ourselves off in ways because we just connect through screens.

[00:52:36] And so we aren't making physical, emotional eye contact connections with each other.

[00:52:42] And so as a society, I think that it's really easy for everyone at the moment to not want to feel things.

[00:52:48] And I see it in myself.

[00:52:51] And I see it in myself.

[00:52:51] I feel it within myself of wanting to just turn off and shut the world away because that's easier a lot of the time.

[00:52:57] It's an act of self-protection.

[00:53:04] I see it in myself.

[00:53:07] And I see it in myself.

[00:53:14] I see it in myself.

[00:53:27] I see it in myself.

[00:53:30] It's different levels of trauma, different moments of grief.

[00:53:34] And that's what I think should be bringing us together.

[00:53:39] And we put up these barriers, both physical and emotional, to allow ourselves to not connect at all.

[00:53:47] So for me, it's important that I feel things that in the moments where I want to shut off,

[00:53:56] to examine those moments and go, am I doing this because I really need a break from the world?

[00:54:03] Or am I doing this because I'm scared of what is coming up or what connection I don't want to make?

[00:54:13] Whether that's a connection with another person or a connection within myself about something.

[00:54:19] Wow.

[00:54:22] That's incredible, right?

[00:54:23] Incredible.

[00:54:28] I'm just coming up on, we're just, I think we're just keeping an eye on time here.

[00:54:33] Is there anything that you'd like to share that I've not asked you about?

[00:54:41] Um, I think that being adopted is something that I'm personally really proud about.

[00:54:47] But I don't want to, I don't want to push away the experiences of others who don't resonate with my experience.

[00:54:56] I really only try and speak for myself, which is why I think that I don't talk about being adopted very frequently.

[00:55:02] Unless someone asks about it or wants to hear about it.

[00:55:05] Um, I, a lot of the times think that, oh, there are bigger voices in the community who need to be heard more than I do.

[00:55:13] Um, but yeah, I, for other adoptees who might be listening, um, I'm really proud to be adopted.

[00:55:22] I love the adoption community and, um, I'm always interested to hear other adoptees experiences and things.

[00:55:29] And I'm really, really, I mean, again, I know it's a loaded word, but I am grateful that my experience is what it is and that I have mostly positive feelings about it.

[00:55:40] Yeah.

[00:55:44] Yeah.

[00:55:44] So last question for you, you know, I've taken a, I've taken a go at, uh, a couple of titles for this, uh, conversation.

[00:55:55] Um, I, I'm wondering whether you've had any thoughts about what it could be.

[00:56:02] I mean, I liked the one that you already came up with of exploring complexities in adoption or maybe, I don't know.

[00:56:11] Yeah.

[00:56:16] I was thinking more, I was thinking about something that's, you know, an attention grabber, um, like joy and trauma, you know, something that doesn't exist.

[00:56:31] Or, or this, this idea of, you know, freedom, freedom with trauma.

[00:56:36] Because I think what has pushing away, you're talking about pushing away emotions.

[00:56:44] I've spent a lot of time being worried about being worried.

[00:56:49] I've, I've, I've spent a lot of time pushing negative stuff away.

[00:56:54] And I think that accepting is, is a lot healthier than stuffing or pushing away.

[00:57:07] So maybe something around that.

[00:57:10] Yeah.

[00:57:12] Yeah.

[00:57:13] I really believe that it is okay to not be okay.

[00:57:16] And when you need help, ask for it.

[00:57:20] Yes.

[00:57:21] Yeah.

[00:57:23] Fantastic, Josie.

[00:57:24] Thank you very much.

[00:57:26] Thank you.

[00:57:27] Incredible conversation.

[00:57:28] Thank you.

[00:57:29] Yes.

[00:57:29] Thank you.

[00:57:30] Thank you too listeners.

[00:57:31] We'll speak to you again very soon.

[00:57:32] Thank you.

[00:57:33] Bye-bye.