Hey there. It's Melissa. Brunetti and welcome to the mind your own Karma podcast. Hey, their karma crew, oh the joys of recording at home and not having an official recording studio. It is so great. They literally have been sitting here for 10 minutes, waiting for the little Chihuahua. Next door to stop barking. The motorcycles to stop going by and the airplanes or helicopters to stop going overhead. But that is not going to happen today.
That is not in the cards. And I cannot wait any longer to tell you about what I am going to tell you today. So here we go. I have realized recently with being in the adoption community that there is so much lingo to learn and you know, birth mothers or called BM and adoptive parents or a peas and then there's late Discovery adoptees. So you've got the lda's and there's just so much along with. All the acronyms and things like
that. There are other words that come up like the fog and I was in a Fireside adoptees Zoom meeting today and there were some new people that had not ever been on the zoom call and so they were asking what the fog was because that was what our discussion was today was the fog and they wanted to know what exactly it was. They had no idea. So we're going to talk about that today a little bit and let me tell you the discussion today
on that Zoom call was fire. I mean, everybody had a story in a lot of people wanted to talk and just telling about how they came out of the fog and what was the fog to them? And it's just different for everyone. Everyone has a different experience and so it's so interesting to listen to Because if you are an adoptee there is going to be somebody. That's going to say something that you can relate to. Single time. It's really the most awesome place for adoptees.
I'm so glad. We had some new people today, and I really think they got some good things out of the call. So, if you're looking for a spot to commiserate about being an adoptee somewhere where you can talk openly about anything, and everything, and fine like-minded, people Fireside, adoptees on Facebook, is the place to be. So, let's Jump Right In to what It is adoption fog and this is just kind of my definition of adoption fog.
And I see it as an unconscious or a subconscious state of denial or even ignorance that you have being an adoptee about being traumatized by your adoption experience. That either you don't realize it, you don't want to acknowledge it but mostly it's a subconscious thing. Most of the time has adopted He's, we don't even know.
We're in the fog, we don't know. And that's why it can be such a slap in the face when that fog lifts and you are faced with a lot of realities that you had not even realized were there. So, how was talk about, how we even get in the fog in the first
place? Well, I believe for myself and a lot of other adoptees and let me just say a couple Caveat here because some of the things I'm going to mention here, this isn't all my personal stories or feelings, these are things that people other adoptees have told me. Or I have done research online, might be my personal Journey as being an adoptee but not necessarily. So let me just start with that. But how do we get in the fog?
I believe in the beginning when we are taken from our birth mothers, that is where the trauma begins that abandonment, that Primal wound that we Is talk about right then and there. So what happens to that little baby is? We just go into survival mode at that point. And what does it look like for a little baby? I don't really even. I can't even imagine, I can't even imagine what takes place in that little body at that moment when they're like, where's my mom?
Where's my mother that I have known for the past nine months. And They lay you in a bassinet and they leave you there. I interviewed one birth mother last month which she's going to be on the show in January and she went to the nursery to see her baby and all the babies were just lined up and little bassinets, just laying there. Nobody holding them, nobody feeding them, nobody soothing them, They had to self-soothe as
newborns. Can you imagine that just put yourself in that spot for just a moment. So that little baby internalizes that wound, right then. And there there's that Primal wound and they internalize that and that physically mentally and it gets coated in their cells,
in their body that trauma. And what is Look like as you grow up, and what you'll hear from a lot of adoptees is that it causes all kinds of mental and physical tendencies in us that we self-protect we self-soothe and it so it makes us do and say certain things that we don't even know we're doing because of the trauma. So I do believe that that fog starts settling Ang in at that moment.
The other thing that gets us or Keeps Us in the fog is our generational and societal conditioning because we're told our whole life. How lucky we are how great adoption is how our lives are so much better. That we were adopted how our birth mothers gave us the gift of this wonderful life and on and on and on. And so we hear those things over and over.
Over and over again. And that conditions us so that when we start questioning or thinking about our adoption that, those feelings are not validated because everyone's telling us you're lucky and we're like, then why do I feel all these other things. And so we start questioning ourselves, we start feeling like we're crazy that we shouldn't be thinking about those things or having those feelings.
And so we push them down, which It is so unhealthy, but that's what we do because we want to survive and we want to be loved. And so we do the things that were supposed to do and all these things. Make us not want to talk about it because everyone's telling us, it doesn't matter that what we're feeling doesn't matter, why are we feeling that way? You know that we're wanted, and we were chosen. And so what is there to feel bad about? There's nothing to feel bad. At about.
So why do we feel bad? Another reason that we get into the fog is like I said as babies that self-protection we want to be liked we want to fit in, we want to be loved, we want to have friends, all those things, make us retract and step back from our feelings, as adoptees The message always is, what are you upset about? There's nothing to be upset about you were given the gift of a new family. And if you were raised by that other family, it probably
wouldn't have been so great. So what is the problem here? Well, the problem is that we have these feelings and we have been traumatized and were not being listened to, and we're not being validated. Did as adoptees with society. And so we step back from society because it's not a safe place for us to reveal or show our traumas. So we self-protect, we deny our feelings. We go into survival mode and you know, at first being in the fog is great. You ask any adoptee that has
come out of the fog. If they would like to go back into the fog, I would say, 90% of those Diabetes would say, I would love to go back in the fog. I would love to be in that denial state where I could wear my mask and live life without having to deal with all the trauma and the grief and trying to figure out who I am now, and it's just so much. You have no idea unless you're an adoptee, how difficult it is to come out of the Fog.
It's like a slap in the face. A lot of times I've heard people say it's like being shot out of a cannon. It literally is like someone punched you and you're just like what just happened. It's like the, the blindfold has come off of your eyes and you cannot unsee what you have seen.
You can ton feel what you're feeling any longer you have ripped the lid, Off of that Pandora's Box, the lid is off and you are coming out of that box and you could try and slap that lid back on and push everything back down. But it is like a volcano at that point. Once you see it, it's coming. There is no stopping it. You can try but it's not you, there's no way and it's like that volcano is going to erupt and once that eruption started, Arts. There's no stopping it.
I heard one adoptees say that their husband was nervous because he was seeing all these changes in his adoptee wife and that she was trying to figure out who she was and where she came from and what her true authenticity was and he was scared that he wasn't going to like that person. And I just thought, you know, How about for the adoptee, how scary is it for them to not know who they are and to try and figure that out? And what if they don't like who they are? That is the scary part.
Yes, there's casualties in adoption. That are that are all around the adopt D that do have to deal with the adoptee trauma process, as well as the adoptee. It's Difficult to watch because there's really nothing anyone can do except validate, and listen. And even then a lot of times adoptees don't feel like they're being listened to. I've had adoptees. Also say that in these adoptee forums is really the only place that they feel that people actually hear them.
And if you listen to my interview with Daniel gaudette, she talked about in her book Look how her birth mother came to visit and meet her adoptive parents. And they were in the car driving. Her birth mother back to the hotel when her birth mother and her adopted mother. Each took one of her hands and they were just looking at her lovingly like, isn't this great? And all I could think of was isn't this horrifying? And Danielle was like, thank So much for validating that only an
adoptee would see it that way. Everyone else would be like, oh my gosh, isn't this great everybody's getting along and she's holding both Mother's Hands and this is such a great moment. No, it is not a great moment. I can't imagine how she felt trying to navigate that moment. Horrible, totally horrible. I wonder if you can relate, if you are not an adoptee and you're listening to this right now if you can relate to that because it's horrifying.
But anyway, back to the fog, the things that keep us there or put us there is our life. In our experience from the day we were taken from our birth mother's. We were taught how to act and how to be and how to feel and so that is what our survival was. Whether it was truly coming from us. I bet a lot of adoptees would say, no, I learned those things to survive, and it really doesn't matter what adoptive experience, you had good, bad or
ugly, it doesn't really matter. We all go through the Primal wound and coming out of the fog and realizing that we have been traumatized all this time and realizing why we do things. Things why we say things and it's just a huge realization that is blinding a lot of times and we can't even see where to go from coming out of the fog and to this bright light. That's really the truth now. Now what now, what do we do now?
Where do we go? We've ripped the Pandora's Box lid off and this eruption has started now. What? So those are just some of the things that put us in Fog, what things bring us out of the fog and he could be a lot of different life events. It could be a marriage. It could be a divorce. It could be the birth of a child. It could be your reunions with your birth family.
It could be someone that you see in a crowd that even looks like you, so it's just kind of odd things like that, that can Can just rip that Veil off of your eyes to where you are, suddenly in a tornado, just spinning out of control for me. The fog was Engulfing my entire life, it wasn't just my fog of adoption. It was my fog of every single facet of my life and my Pandora's Box lid came off when I could no longer. Keep my mask on anymore, the
mask was coming off. I mean, I literally couldn't keep it on anymore. It was coming off and I was exposed And it was either figure it out. It was sink or swim, figure it out or die, literally die. So I started swimming. And I think God figured out my authenticity and it was painful, it was super painful, because along with it I was also lifting the veil of the adoption fog of my marriage fog. Of myself my own fog and I had created a whole Persona. That was not true.
I was an actor in my own life and it was scary trying to figure out who I was and it's a process. And I hear so many people just say, I don't know who I am, I don't know where to start and that. Isn't the focus of this podcast today and so we'll talk about that maybe another time, but for me, it was just the lifting of the fog of my life and the key to it all. If you're really going to boil it, down to lifting the fog, it
is discovering you. It's discovering your authentic self and living it. And I'm not saying, and I've said this before, it isn't easy. The adoption coming out of the adoption fog is not for sissies. It is not for sissies, it's it's difficult and it's the most difficult thing that you will probably have to do. But it is the best thing that you will ever go through when you get to the other side. I'm not saying there's not casualties, I had casualties.
I've heard many of adoptees talk about their casualties, it's not fun, you lose people, you are going to lose people and there's going to be people in your life that are going to be like when's Melissa coming back because I don't like this one. So can you like hurry up and go through whatever it is that you're trying to figure out right now so that we can get back to life? As I know I knew it. Life being with you as I knew it.
Like I don't like the way things are going right now so let's speed this process up. What do we have to do to get you back to what you were before? That's not going to happen. When you come out of the fog. You are changed for ever. You can't go back. You are going to have a new sense of normal. The old normal is not coming back. And there's some people that are just not going to like that and you know, it's sad but it's
okay. If they have to step away, then they have to step away, but you have to do what you have to do. Also, which is becoming yourself and figuring out who that is. And you're going to find out who your friends are. You're going to find out who your tribe is and it's probably going to surprise you who sticks around and who doesn't but if you want to really break it down, coming out of the fog is discovering yourself. So actually in that way adoption
is a gift. It's a gift that pushes you to be you and figure out what that is. The other thing I want to say is there's no making or pushing somebody out of the Fog. They have to come out of the fog themselves. There's no making somebody do it. And you know what the fog works
until it doesn't. And until you come to that conclusion, that it's not working for you anymore, then you're going to live in it still and like I said, a lot of adoptees wish they could go back in the fog because it was a lot
easier back. There, it seemed and I didn't have to deal with all this trauma and crap, but I'm thinking or finding out that you have been in a trauma is somewhat comforting as well as horrifying because then you kind of see yourself through a different lens in your like oh the light bulb goes on and it's that's why this and that's why that and you start making it all these realizations that you had no clue or even part of being adopted.
Because you've always been told that you don't have any scars from your adoption that. Everything's just fine and normal and dandy. And so many people come out of the fog in their mid life. Because and we've talked about this, a lot of us adoptees have talked about this that we think before that, we would not have been able to survive coming out of the fog. We were not in a mental, emotional, physical. Physical state, we weren't
mature enough to handle. What we had to handle from coming out of the fog until we were in our midlife. And so that's when it was revealed to us, because this is when we can handle it and let me tell you, there's some adoptees that are gripping, their Knuckles are white trying to hold on. From coming out of the fog. They are so traumatized. They are they are it's unreal to them that this was going on in their bodies and they had no
clue and it's shocking. People that are not normally emotional people just break down from the grief that they feel. From the trauma of being relinquished. And a lot of it goes back to the birth mother and the trauma. They feel from being abandoned by her and it's just heart, wrenching, watching them grieve that this is another part of them that they've kept hidden. A lot of us are not emotional people. We keep that very close to our
chest. We can Be that vulnerable in front of people as to cry in front of them. It's not safe. And when we did it as a baby, nothing happened. So we just stopped, we stopped crying. So, crying doesn't get us anywhere. We put on our big girl and boy panties, and we just make life happen because that's what we've learned to do. Adoption starts with the loss of the birth mother and child relationship but coming out of
the fog is where you are found. If you are coming out of the fog just keep walking find a good adoption trauma therapist. Find some like-minded adoptee groups to get in to talk about it. Two people that understand that have your back that you feel safe. Talking to educate yourself, read books. Listen to podcasts, about people's experiences. And what kind of help is out there for you. What help do you need right now? You need to listen to yourself.
You need to listen to your mind and your body and just walk in the direction that feels right. And I Promise you, the doors will open. If you just start walking, don't stay stuck in the fog, acknowledge the grief and Trauma cry. It out, punch some pillows, do whatever you have to do to feel the feelings, but don't stop walking out of the fog because you are on the other side of the fog. And I I promise you, it gets
better. It's super painful, but it gets better, it's not going to happen in a day. It's not going to happen in a week. It's not going to happen in a month. It might not even happen for years. But there is hope and help out there for you to try and navigate this road. Choosing to face your adoption and whatever trauma that you have been through is not to be
judged by anybody. But you, that is so important to understand because there are people out there that do try and judge how dense the fog is for everyone else when they should be looking at their own dense fog. And trying to figure out how to get out of there, but don't worry about Any of that or what people say, or think or do, because it just doesn't matter. People are going to have their opinions, they need to keep them to themselves.
In mind their own Karma, you are on your own journey and you are the one that judges where you are at and how you're feeling and what's happening? Everybody is different their Journeys different because their life has been different and their experiences have been different. So Do not. Let anyone tell you how you should be feeling or what you should not be feeling. I know this process can make you feel. So lonely that you are the only one that's going through this.
But let me tell you, that is so far from the truth. I had no idea how many groups were out there. How much help is out there? How much counseling is out there for adoptees? And it's only the beginning. The ball has just started to roll. All let me tell you. So, if you find yourself coming out of the adoption fog, there are three things that I think are super important that you should do first.
And of, obviously, the first thing is, if you are struggling, please do not hesitate to find a good trauma therapist. If you can find one that specializes in adoption, that would be ideal if not just find a trauma therapist. The second thing to do is find A group that you can express yourself in and feel safe doing so the last thing is educate yourself. There's so many great books. There are articles online about adoption trauma, start. Educating yourself on the subject and what help is
available for you out there? If you are, an adoptee that doesn't feel that. You are in the fog. There are adoptees that will go their entire lives. Feeling just fine and not feeling like they need to come out of anything and that is totally fine to not. Everyone is going to feel that they are in the fog. Don't let anyone tell you that you are wrong in that, if that's where you're at, then that's where you're at.
And you could be totally fine, your entire life and you may never feel the trauma of adoption. So there is no right or wrong in how anyone feels in their individual adoption Journey. That's a personal choice.
It's a personal journey and only you know how you feel and where you're at. So those of you that didn't know what the adoption fog was, I hope this clears up the fog a little bit for you and so you can better understand what it means when people are talking about the adoption fog because it's a big deal in the adoption community. So if you don't know, What it is. You're going to learn pretty quick with the adoption fog is
next week. I think I might give some tips and tricks on reunions and kind of give you my own spin on, maybe some things that might help you if you are searching or if you are in the middle of reunions with birth family. As you know, I think there needs to be education on reunions and expectations and Anything that surrounds that because most of the time, there's always some bumps in the road if not totally driving off the road when it comes to reunions and taking
detours. So if you need any help with that, or guidance or just curious about some things that might help if you're thinking about reunions tune in next week, if you are a regular listener to the podcast, I would ask you to please rate and review. View this podcast on your listening platform. It really helps the algorithms and helps me educate the world
on adoption. If you are anyone in the adoption constellation, that would like to share their stories on mind, your own Karma, you can email me at mind, your own Karma at gmail.com, and let's get your story on the podcast. If you have written a book, if you are a counselor a trauma, counselor, anyone that is doing something to help. Help the adoptees through this process. Please email me and let's get
you on the show. Let's get to the world educated in the way we can do. That is putting our stories out there. One story at a time, your story is important and people probably relate to 5,000 other adoptees out there. You will be helping fellow adoptees. Not feel so alone by telling your story. Thanks for listening today. And as always, take what you need and leave, what you don't and always remember to mind your own Karma. I'll see you next time. Oh my gosh, Tomlin.
Are you serious? This is what I put up with guys.