229 – So Many Blessings in the Darkness

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as a Catholic. Give it up for adoption. and it was a normalized too in our family because we were both adopted, but that's when I was pregnant is when I really started wondering about my birth mother.

I'd always thought about her, but it's when I really started because I was going to have to give up my only known blood relative, my baby. The only human that looked like me, the only human that was related to me,

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So I kind of got dropped.

So we worked it out. But, if you look back and all the photographs of me. In my mom's lab with my brother, well, next to my brother if you see any picture, you can see my jaw jetting out because I'm jealous and I know I picked on him and you can see pictures of me when he's barely walking that, I have my fist above his head and he's cowering.

And I do remember growing up, we, we used to laugh about it and tell, our friends, we were adopted, they were like, Ooh, you are, I wish we were too, those types of things. And I didn't think it was a big deal or bad thing. When I was little, although when I got a little older, my early teens, I started really noticing the differences within my family that, and in fact, at 15, I was writing in a journal and I made a note that nobody in my family is related.

He was very sensitive. I was a little like a little percher on. My dad used to think of me as this little bit horses. That's really strong. I was a tomboy, had dark hair, all of skin. And it was, apparently appeared fearless, but I remember as early as my first memory of wanting to not be embarrassed is When I was probably three or four we were in a living in Alaska and I Was told not to but I stuck my tongue to the fence The metal fence.

My mom kind of dropped me and I was strong. My dad favored me. and then I had trouble. I had trouble in first grade with being able to count, write my numbers. And I can still remember. I mean, the first grade sitting at the kitchen table and getting confused between, like, maybe the transitioning from maybe 10 to 11 or, 19 to 20.

She'd slam her pencil down and push her, chair away from the table. And so I just stopped bringing work home. I mean, I think I probably had some ADD and learning disabilities or something. and then when I was in elementary school, maybe second or third grade I started feeling really good.

I don't know if anybody listening remembers SRA, but they were little boxes of cards for reading, and you would go up a level and you get a different color box of cards to read. And I moved right up in second grade, and I was so proud. And then we had, I think it was a class census. Must have been because there was something, came around and you had to color it in with a black, number two pencil is very important, fill in the dot and it came to me and I couldn't answer this one question.

And man, I felt like that was, there was something wrong with me. And that is when everything shut down in terms of education. that's the first memory of my real self worth issues.

Just this general question of, wow, what, why aren't I getting this can be really prevalent. Tough to get through. You mentioned before that you felt like your mom Dropped you what does that mean?

He was, the lady at the adoption agency was so proud because he was sleeping through the night at three weeks old. Well, I think he had failure to thrive syndrome. He was skinny and gangly. And when we brought him home, he cried constantly. He had food allergies, his blood pressure. Belly button was poking out.

He needed fattening up. He, he cried at any little thing, especially if it involved being mom, having fun. So basically I was not tonight, not today, honey. We don't want to wake your brother. No more playing the piano, no more time with mom. And I resented him and he just needed her and she needed someone to need her.

And, he had, she had nowhere to go. He had nowhere to go. And that kid, man, that little boy, he could write you a letter where you had to read in the mirror. He could write with either hand upside down or backwards. He could, he played first violin in seventh grade by ear. He could sit and play any instrument.

and we've healed our relationship. He's finally working. He's getting, self esteem's improved. I mean, codependency it was child abuse and it was elder abuse too, she was living in squalor, I was kicked to the curb, I couldn't really get, see my mom because my brother had her in his clutches, it was a mess.

And my father Had I don't know how to put it. He was sexually attracted to me And so I believe there was and I couldn't identify What was up with my mom and me because I loved her so much. She was my mom and she just Was snarky to me and anything I asked for, I felt like I was, unworthy.

I couldn't see it while she was still living, because I loved her. She was my mom, being an adoptee, we, we glom on to anything, anybody, especially Our parent we may not like them but there's this need to be needed or loved and wanted and I couldn't identify it until she was passed and she was jealous of me and she resented me before for my strength for my, I just, I had a lot of trauma, like a lot of trauma in my, especially in the first 16 years.

And I think maybe that's an adoptee thing, it's like I just you know, I know my dad The things he did and in his sickness.

He 19. We moved to california when I when I was 16 and so

Even one of the things that you said was that she dropped you in terms of an emotional connection to you when your brother was adopted, that seems like that's one piece of trauma right there. And then they became codependent with each other. And then. If I heard you correctly, you said that your adoptive father was physically attracted to you, which in my mind would also play out in their own relationship, right?

That his attraction to you would limit his attraction to her, thereby creating the jealousy that you've now identified as something that she. Was snarky about. Is that roughly correct that there were multiple things along those lines that sort of compounded into the challenges of your relationship with your mom?

And actually, my mother dumping me, I don't know how else to say it, that's just how it felt,

I don't even know if that was one of the traumas of the 11th, but, and then there was so much gaslighting, and so much, all those were, aren't even considered big T traumas, and they weren't counted, so yes, Yeah, there, my parents relationship was fraught, and they seemed to get along and love each other, but I learned a lot of things, over the years, and I grew up in a really sick household.

Can you tell me a little bit about your teenage years? it sounded like it got pretty rough. You moved away. I would imagine as a teenager, your father's attraction to you probably even worse. Tell me a little bit about your teenage years in your home. Cause it sounded like it was a rebellious time for you.

And so I, this was kind of all in conjunction with. Some things that happened with my dad, he he, there was no physical sexual abuse when I was a teenager, but there was some absolute horrific verbal abuse and physical abuse. And it was the. I was about 11 when it first started and then 13 when it just like broke me.

And what I did is I never felt like I fit in with the kids at school. These kids came up from the lower 48. Their fathers were bank managers. They lived in nice fancy houses. My dad was a businessman. He was a real estate guy, but we lived in a, kind of a normal, subdivision wasn't fancy.

I felt like someone would look up to me if I was bad. And I didn't fit in with the smart kids in school. And I just became a delinquent and with the claim to a virginity, I was named after the Virgin Mary being Mary Monica, major Catholic family, my dad with Madonna complex. My mother, Virgin, when he married her, it was clear in our family.

And I snuck out my window. I broke into houses. I rode in stolen cars. I beat people up. I vandalized. And I put myself in some really scary places. starting from 13 until 15. and so 15 is when My life changed.

I don't know this, but just the way you've described your home life and the abuse and then the breakup of your mom and you on from her side feels like being a badass was saying, Hey, somebody pay attention to me, please. Right. Am I wrong about that? Okay.

Oh, please look at me. Please look at me.

They carried guns and knives and switchblades and did crime and back then everybody carried a gun, but and I don't, I think they still do. I don't think there's a concealed weapon lot there at all. And so I stuck out my bedroom window one night and I got raped by my friends.

and I took that to my grave almost, you know, for, I didn't tell anybody.

I, I felt like it was my fault. I shouldn't have done this. I should have screamed. I should have, I didn't have a bloody lip. I, clothes weren't torn, the whole scenario. The chapter is called. I think a lousy lay in my book, actually. And it was devastating because I'd lost my crutch.

Yes. And it's

And had I have not gotten locked up, in the house with my very Catholic mother, I'd probably ended up in prison. I couldn't stop breaking into houses. It was my first addiction. And I never got caught. I liked my hair on fire. And so this was a reset. And it did reset me, it's not to say that I didn't, go have problems, after my father died, but man, I got locked in the house with a very Catholic mom, and she became my best friend.

Oh, I see what you're saying. Your adoptive mother also no longer saw you as competition. Right. Right.

When springtime comes around in Alaska, everyone comes, bursting out of their homes, ready to socialize, but Monica still pregnant and intentionally sequestered from the public could not go out and socialize with the others. She was still a kid at 15 years old And all of the frolicking and playing outside, the other kids were doing was off limits to her as a pregnant teenager. As a sophomore in high school, a time when a kid starts finding their groove among an expanded more mature friend group. Monica had been pulled out of school.

See, because after the rape, I didn't want to be that juvenile delinquent anymore. I wanted to be a nice girl. I was starting the high school. Sophomores were high school students. Freshmen were junior high there. And I wanted to be different and that's when I found out I was pregnant and got locked up.

And I'm like, there wasn't one. There was never a scene. There was never a conversation. It was probably because adoption was normalized in my family. It was also, we were, Very strict Catholic. It would, it was just, we're going to take you to see a nun at Catholic services and she's going to, for the adoption.

And it was just, it's like,

I'd always thought about her, but it's when I really started because I was going to have to give up my only known blood relative, my baby. The only human that looked like me, the only human that was related to me, and I remember grooming the nun for her to let me see my baby because the Catholic hospitals didn't let you, and I was basically going to hold her hostage, I'm sorry, unless I get to see her, you don't get her.

I'm not signing. That was my idea and, in the back of my mind, but they, I did get to see her and while I was pregnant, I went to a pregnant girl's school. I mean, I had the option of going away and I wanted to stay in town because my girlfriend said, Oh, you need your friends the most for this time.

all of them were planning on relinquishing. I was the only one that relinquished, except for one girl, the 17 year old got an abortion. Everybody else, they weren't at the Catholic hospital, they saw their baby and they kept it. Or their mother wouldn't let them give them up.

If you looked at your parent, I mean, first of all, when they were talking to you, you looked right in their eyes. You did not look away. You did not breathe. You never rolled your eyes, never had an attitude or help. You get slapped across the face. My mother was a rager. I was terrified of her. My father didn't, he didn't really punish us except the one wire hanger beating that I got.

And when I was driving down the freeway in California, I mean, I had so many repressed memories thing and it was. It was a, it was the abandonment of my mom who didn't protect me. And, anyway, my son said, I was talking to him about it in the kitchen, and my brother was there, I think somebody else was there, and he goes, Mom, if you or Dad did that to me, I'd have run and told, I would have told somebody right away, it sounds like you had Stockholm Syndrome.

And I'm like yeah, that's harsh, no. I looked it up, abused children can have Stockholm Syndrome.

That's really fascinating that he made that insight on you. Wow.

When I asked what Monica's life was like after the relinquishment, she described seeing pictures of herself at her sweet 16 birthday party. She said she was so pretty back then with beautiful, shiny hair and this sweet look of innocence.

Ha! super, sarcastic and I remember thinking and I wrote it in my journal my other mother She must be thinking about me It's such a weird feeling thinking that somebody you don't even know is thinking about you and somebody they don't even know is thinking about them And when I was pregnant, the state adoption agency came to pregnant girls school and were, giving the women their options, the girls their options.

And I afterwards stayed back and I told her that I was already making plans through Catholic charities. And I said, but I'm adopted and my parents don't know anything about my family. because I'd never mentioned it. I just assumed nobody knew anything. So I went home and I told my mom and she started to cry and I said mama, what's wrong?

Yeah. Adoption isn't natural.

but yes.

I just won't think about it right now as we're driving away, from my daughter. I just won't think about it right now. And so I'd push it down. But that 16th birthday was so depressing and yeah, I, once I got back to school I tried to get back in the swing of things. I thought I, things will be more normal.

They weren't, I had body issues, insecurity. I had a little stretch marks around my tummy and, just, I, I wasn't going to be able to, look normal like the other girls. And so, yeah life was different, but one thing that I might add really quick when I mentioned that to my mom, she said, well, there's some papers in the safe box with your mother's name and your name on it.

I don't know. It's so complex.

I mean there was a lot in there. Wow, monica. So your informed that she was deceased for many years.

Did you end up meeting any of your maternal family at all?

And it's scratchy VHS, but I'm 23 and my father was indigenous. And so was my birth mother. And so I didn't know that growing up. I always, you know, it's all of skin, straight hair, dark hair. But I had, hazel eyes, my mother was blue eyed, father was Irish, her mother was Indigenous, and my father was Indigenous.

Plains Cree. And so, he got off the plane apologizing for his color. And I've never understood, or I've never experienced prejudice. I'm privileged. White. Transcription by CastingWords pretty never experienced that, but in Canada, being indigenous is real low on the totem pole in terms of, social status, and he was shamed all growing up.

contained in the lake, which is now a Catholic, but it used to be Lake of the Spirit, Manitou Sakahiga, I believe is how it's pronounced. So yeah, that was a whole new experience.

And so I wanted to be too, and I'd always felt drawn that way. but I had no idea. And then on the papers that I saw when I was pregnant with the baby, I relinquished, it said that my father was French and my mother was Irish. Well, they left it off because I would have been hard to place. And I was born, I found later with a full head of dark hair.

She was an historian In, around Lac Saint Anne, when I was, where I was born, about how, her mother she went on buffalo hunts, and her mother was a medicine woman, and so she would be my great aunt, and her mother would be my great grandmother, and I've been an herbalist, aromatherapist, I've made poulticists, I've, I mean, For years, I've been like the healing lady everybody came to and I started a company, a body care company back in the mid nineties, that's now in 64 countries today.

I don't know it anymore, but I've always formulated and created and it's like no kidding. My great grandma was a medicine woman, right?

What was your relationship with him after your reunion?

My sense is that years of trauma from, basically, colonizers, has made it such that people feel that white is right, right. That they've been oppressed. And so it must be better to be white. And so it's just, it was just interesting to me to hear him make a comment that. almost echoed years and years of trauma that would have been inflicted upon indigenous people.

Am I wrong about that?

So you're no one. You're not white and you're not indigenous. You're not a no man. And that's who settled around the lake is of the people that mostly took script which was the government gave the indigenous people a little bit of land, a little bit of money to not be Indian anymore. And so it's, it was a genocide.

He apologized. we don't hear a lot about what, in the U. S., about what happened up in Canada with the Indigenous people. Like, I was part of the Sixties Scoop. That was different. They took Indigenous babies out of homes and put them in white families. They were trying to get rid of them.

Suggested, maybe she should just wait.

I was sitting at my desk at work, and the phone rang, and it was Catholic Social Services, and I'm, we're sorry it's taken so long to get back to you, and I'm, Like, okay, I wasn't expecting you to what, well, we have a picture here. I'm like a picture of who of your daughter, she and her mother had called within a week or two of my call six months early because she couldn't wait.

We have the same interests.

That it's been behind the wall of the dam and someone just calls with this notion, this information that they've got a picture of your daughter and the dam just opened. Unreal. Wow. So what happens then? You get this call. What do they tell you is the next step and how do you go about meeting your daughter?

And what was I going to tell her? she's going to want to know who he is. And so that was a whole nother really fascinating turn of events. But she called me and We get on the phone I had stuff my feelings for so long and I would never watch sad movies about loss, someone dying nothing sad.

Those things I wanted to ask my mom that I never got to ask her. And we talked for two hours and she later told me, she goes, you, I didn't have to ask you anything. You just gave it all. Everything I wanted to know.

I need to pre deal with some of this stuff is really powerful. I think a lot of people, one, we don't necessarily get the opportunity, right? Sometimes reunion just happens fast and you're like, Oh shit, here it comes. Right. And you just kind of dive in. But the fact that you were able to sort of make and take time to get some of your own emotions out of the way so that you could be really present and.

Grant space for her is pretty impressive. I find

It was intuitive. Yeah. It was both intuitive and you had the unique perspective of the same lived experience, , and therefore you could. Empathize accurately versus attempting to empathize. There's a huge difference. That's really awesome So tell me a little bit about what your reunion was like.

How did it go?

It's dark and, the planes are coming through, but you can't see anything. All just the reflection. I'm staring at this reflection looking for her plane and I'm tapping my foot. I'm so nervous. I'm taking deep breaths. I'm pacing back and forth and I'm not generally a nervous person, but I mean, this was the biggest deal of my life.

This was it. And I'm waiting for her to come up.

I don't remember it. I can see it on video and we hug and brace and she's got tears and I'm got tears and we pull apart and look at each other in tears. You can see her face and then we hug again. And and then my daughter, The first baby I got to keep, Becca, she hands her a bouquet and she wipes her tears.

I mean, it was super, super emotional. It was super emotional. And my mom was there and my brother was there and I had a few friends there. And it was like, I don't know the top of the heap, it doesn't get better than that.

Wow. So what did you do? You obviously didn't just stand at the airport. What did you guys do after you sort of greeted each other there? Well,

In fact, I had an 18th birthday party for her in a reunion party. And in my backyard I had, gotten my act together. I had a little girl. It was a single mom had my own home and and we dressed. And the same clothes, they were vivid purple and green. The same colors I painted my bedroom right after she was born, like trying to wipe out all that darkness is funny.

And I look probably because I'm indigenous, at least 10 years younger than I am. And she Yeah, we just look so much alike and we're only 15 years apart too. So

It is Uncanny really amazing. Wow. So how I was

I mean, their family, like my family wasn't like that. Nobody came to our house. Nobody wanted to be around my parents. Nobody really, we didn't have relatives. And, I'm like my family, I want my kids to have, they come to my house, their friends all came over, it was an open house, they were always welcome here.

And that's how I would have grown up.

My sister right now is on this big walk. She's got a group text going, pictures of her in Vancouver, walking with all these women. Like, I don't even know what it is exactly, but something she's doing there. That's And I miss it. I missed it all, but I'm not going to move to Michigan and I'm not going to move to Canada.

I have kids here and grandparents and my grandchild and my brother and a life here. And it's just, I'm so fractured.

It's, I feel what you're saying.

You have been through so much. How are you doing now? I mean, you've talked about trauma from childhood, being broken up with from your adoptive mother. Sort of the challenge of their co dependence, your brother and your mom, your father, and the challenges he presented in terms of, you You've talked about lashing out, and trying to be the baddest girl possible, and unfortunately you've talked about that going terribly wrong.

Some of that time was really dark. And I thought, what am I doing? I shouldn't be doing this. Cause I was digging up memories that I'd stuffed and finding out, what the reoccurring dreams were about and there's different things that happened. And I almost stopped. And when I first started writing, it was cause my daughter, wanted me to, not the one I relinquished, but the one that's 39 now.

And she said, mom, I think you should write a memoir. He's such so interesting, or adopted and you found Mary and you found your family. And I started writing cause now kids had moved out and such, but it got so dark cause I still felt guilty for the rape at 60 still. And I had to get through all of that.

Even, things that aren't really, one guy said, I'm not adopted. I wasn't raped. I'm a man, but I had a dysfunctional family. I feel so much. Your writings helped me so much. And so then I kept going because I knew it wasn't just for me. It wasn't just for me. It was bigger than that. And so, I'm good.

Like I got emotional when I thought of my daughter. Well, I mean, I've gotten emotional a number of times recounting my story. Like, it just, it is what it is. This was my destiny. This is, I'm accepting it. And I'm grateful that I'm here and then I'm present and then I'm sober and that I was a good mom and that I've healed.

And there's just so many blessings in the darkness.

And some, when I shoot out the elevator version, the quick hit that lacks emotion, I'm fine. But if I sit here as you have done and tell the, super long version, I definitely still get emotional. And I've been in reunion for, the longest time you've been in reunion longer than me.

And. You got emotional, recounting that moment of seeing your daughter, whom you had relinquished years before. So, I think it's important for people to recognize that this stuff doesn't just go away. Just because I'm smiling and happy and I'm going about the rest of my life doesn't mean I don't think about all of the things that coincide with being an adoptee and that sounds like that's what you're saying is having been an adoptee, a birth mother, having been through some dark times.

It never goes away, but it sounds like you've done some real Taken some real steps to your own healing and that's amazing. And I hope others are motivated by it.

Okay,

Closing

But did you notice How she referred to her other daughter. She called her the first child. She got to keep. That is a powerful framing for what adoption means for a birth mother and their respective children. Some they are forced to relinquish others. They are allowed to keep. I'm Damon Davis, and I hope you found something in Monica's journey that inspired you. Validate your feelings about wanting to search or motivates you to have this strength along your journey to learn who am I really, if you would like to share your story of adoption in your attempt to connect with your biological family. Please visit who am I really podcast.com/share.

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