Exploring Adoptees' Identity: Navigating Complex Journeys

Adoptees & Identity 

For all our lives, our identities as adoptees have been stripped away from us. Our names changed, our blackness erased, and our birth certificates stolen. This episode we break down the ugly reality of having a fluid identity. 

Adoption is about stripping us of our decision-making autonomy, so this episode is a call for us to reclaim our identity in a way that we decide makes sense. 

What we discussed 

(00:00) What is identity, to us? 

(02:30) How our identity changed when we found out we’re adopted OR Finding out we’re adopted and our identity OR Discovering you’re adopted

(11:09) Am I black? White? Latino? (erasing blackness) 

(13:37) Am I an only child? Oldest child? Middle child?

(17:07) Choosing an identity vs. how other people identify us 

(22:51) Doing a DNA test as an adoptee 

(28:46) “my adoptive mom's dad assaulted me” OR CW: Sexual assault and gaslighting 

(35:16) Changing names as adoptees (& internalizing anti-blackness)

(39:23) Not owning a birth certificate

(42:59) “I have no clue who I am”

Links

Follow us on social media: Twitter | Instagram | Tiktok

Learn more about Lia

Credits

Special thanks to Samuel Oyedele for editing our podcast, support his work on Instagram or e-mail him at Drumaboyiglobal@gmail.com 

Transcript

lia:
Welcome back, everybody. Okay, welcome back, everybody. So on our last episode, we talked about blackness and adoption and just the experience of being a black adoptee. And I think that was a beautiful segue into this week's episode, which is about identity, which is such a heavy topic for me. It is such a broad and vast topic, and it is, you add the layer of adoption to it and. things get really complicated. But to start us off, how do you define identity? What does that mean to you? What does that look like to you?

Dr. Noelle:
It makes me think of a question that I used to ask a lot, and that is, who am I? Where am I supposed to be? So for me, it's a feeling. It's more than just all of the classifications that people ascribe to. It really is about where I belong and who I belong to.

Tosha:
I have to agree with being an adoptee, that's where mine pretty much is as well. It's where I belong to, where I come from, who am I, and then you can throw all the labels that people want to throw on, but it definitely is rooted on who am I and where I come from.

Lia:
So I think for me when I think about identity, similar to what both of y'all have said, I think about who am I, but specifically within the context of how I see myself. I think for a really long time, what my identity meant to me and what it looks like was what other people thought of me. But now, I've been on this journey for the last couple years where I'm redefining that, who am I, through my own eyes, and who am I supposed to be? I feel like adoption strips you of so much, and so I feel like I had this identity that was shaped by my adoption, and now I'm getting back to the core of who I am and who I was always supposed to be. So that's what I think about when I think about identity. How... If you can remember, how did your identity change once you found out that you were adopted or maybe it didn't change at all?

Tosha:
So for me, I'll never remember the exact age. I always say between the ages of seven and nine years old. So prior to then or that time, I just thought I was their child in every sense of the term and every sense of the word. So when I found out that I was adopted, being that young, I didn't quite understand what it totally meant, but I did know, they did let me know that I didn't come from her belly and I didn't come from him biologically. So finding that out, it was earth shattering. And being so young, I didn't know what to do with it. So that point moving forward, I really think it really affected my childhood. It affected my innocence as being a child. That's the first time that I ever really felt different. Cause I thought, I didn't know what adoption, I didn't know what it was. So I thought everyone came from who was a part of their family, is an organic family. I did not know adoption was possible. So I tucked it in for the time being. and we'll get to when that actually started really affecting my life.

Lia:
So for me, similar to Tasha, I kind of feel, I kind of feel like I always knew. I don't really recognize like what age there was this conversation, there wasn't this defining moment where I remember, you know, my adoptive parents sitting me down, hey honey, like we're actually not your parents. Like you actually came from somebody else, we bought you and now you're ours. I'm sure that's not how the story is told, but that's how the story should be told because that's what's happening. But. Yeah, I don't have this definitive moment in my life where I remember being told I kind of felt like I always knew, but I think how it affected me once I came into more of an understanding of what actually happened, I think it affected my self-esteem a lot. I just felt like I was never enough. I wasn't good enough. for my mom to keep me because the narrative was that she gave me up when in fact that wasn't true. But that's the narrative that I was told for a very long time. And then for my dad, I didn't really know anything about him. And I mentioned this before, but I just sort of created this fantasy that he didn't know who I was and, you know, he was going to come rescue me when, again, that couldn't have been further from the truth. So I think the way that it affected me the most once I kind of came to an understanding was really in my self-esteem because I just felt like I wasn't good enough, that nobody wanted me, that people were just going to... continue to abandon me that I was going to continue to be tossed around because Not only was I adopted I spent time in foster care before I was adopted and I went into foster care when I was like Less than a year old so I really didn't have a ton of time with my with my bio mom and just ended up bouncing around Until I eventually landed with my adoptive parents, but it really messed with my self-esteem the way I viewed myself The way I felt about myself and just a lot of feelings of unworthiness. So that's what it brought up for me once I came into understanding.

Dr. Noelle:
That resonates a ton with me, Leah, absolutely the self-esteem, feeling not wanted, feeling like why would anybody want me if my mother didn't want me, all of those things. But I would also have to say, for me there was this sense of being disconnected. I've spent my entire life just feeling completely disconnected. And people talk about seeing me not cry. finding me emotionless, those kinds of things. And I know that it's a direct result of that disconnection. If you put yourself out there, if you're vulnerable, if you're open, if you're feeling, if you're letting people see how you're feeling, you can be harmed. And so I'm known for not crying. And I don't know that I laugh that much either. More now as an adult than I did when I was younger, but feeling completely disconnected and... For me, that really is about my identity. I was not connected to myself in any real way or to anything that gave me a real identity. There was no compass. There was nothing pointing me in the direction of an identity.

Tosha:
And I can also resonate with feeling detached. I also, like with you, Leah, even though I was told in an early age, before I was told, I always felt off, a little different. I just thought it was the fact that I was a military brat and we moved around so often. So that kind of masked what was actually happening. But I did feel different. And Noel, I was also a bit on the not having a lot of emotion. I didn't cry a whole lot, nothing like that. I was a silly kid. But as far as like, I think that was a mask as well. I just didn't take some things seriously because I had such internal serious stuff going on. But it definitely made me not a very emotional child because I was reconciling, why do I feel so different? I can be a room full of people. I feel alone. Why can't I really feel connected to anyone? And it goes back to the fact that my original identity was stripped away from me.

Lia:
Yeah, I think you both brought up really good points. I also resonate with the feeling of being disconnected. I think that's a really good way to describe it. And I wonder how many other adoptees out there who are listening can resonate with this experience of just not. feeling connected to anything and sort of wandering aimlessly through life, trying to figure it out, trying to figure out, are you my people? Like, are you my people? Like, are you my mother? Like, just going through life constantly trying to figure out where you belong, where you come from, like things like that. And I don't think people realize how much that affects you, like not having that sense of... identity, that sense of purpose, that sense of belonging, it's part of, I think it's part of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the sense of belonging, it's a basic core need that we all have, whether we want to admit it or not, we all have that. And so as an adoptee, you're automatically placed at a disadvantage because... you don't have that, you know? And I know that there are people who are with their biological family who still feel out of place, I'm not ignoring any of that, but I think inherently as an adoptee, a large part of that is taken away from you and there's nothing that you can do about it. And so you have to navigate this life, this world, and try to figure out where do you come from, who am I? I remember specifically in 2016, when I started my reunion journey. And I started off by looking for my bio dad because I knew that my bio mom had died. Found out he died, got connected with siblings, and then eventually went the route of looking for siblings on my mom's side. And whenever I started looking for siblings on my mom's side, I found out that my mother was Puerto Rican and black. And whenever I found this out, It was almost like a bit of an identity crisis for me because for my whole life, I've identified as black and I still identify as black. But there are moments where I'm like, OK, like, do I say I'm Afro Latino now? Like, what? like when I fill out paperwork, do I put Hispanic? Like what do I do with this information, right? And so I definitely had like a moment with that. And for me, what it came down to is I feel like at the end of the day, a lot of folks who are from the Caribbean, we all got dropped off the same boat just in different places. And so I feel like at the end of the day, like I'm still a black woman and that's how I choose to identify. but I had my own reckoning with that. Are there any particular moments for y'all that stick out where you maybe sort of had this reckoning or a particular part of your identity that you really started to figure out and really started to resonate with and really stand in that and claim that as like, this is who I am?

Dr. Noelle:
I have more of a story similar to yours. So part of the adoption story that I was told was that I had native heritage as well as black and white. And I was constantly told that. And I think it was part of, in the last episode we talked about blackness and I think it was part of erasing that blackness was making sure that I was claiming these other things. When I found my paternal family, They have a very strong Choctaw heritage. They Choctaw identity. They talk about it all the time. They have tribal cards. They've encouraged me to get mine. And I can't do it. I feel like I don't have a right to it. I feel like I didn't grow up in it. I don't know anything about it. I just, it's not who I am. and it feels like I'm performing something. It feels like I'm doing all that appropriating that we tell people not to do. So I don't claim it, and I don't think that I ever will be able to claim it, but it's such a strong part of their identity, and it's one of the things that was lost for me. I don't, I can't identify with something I didn't live. There are people out there with Native heritages that have had lived experiences that I did not have. And so I just kind of nod and smile when it comes up.

Tosha:
And that's one thing that I actually cannot relate to. I'm just black, as far as I know. Now, growing up, because they knew that I was adopted, certain people, they would look at me like, maybe you have this, maybe you have that, became of, like they didn't know it kind of internally, kind of hurt my feelings a little bit, but it was a little game, like, what if you're mixed with this? You have these undertones, maybe you're that. So that game was played a little bit, but as far as I know, I'm just 100% African American. I'm sure there's some mixtures in there. But one thing that I struggle with a little bit when it comes to identity is my placement in the family. I was raised as an only child. Then I come to find out that I have an older brother. Then later I found out I have a sister. Then later I find out I have two more sisters. So I used to question just my placement, because there's research behind first child, middle child, only child, bonus child, all there's research to that. So. I didn't have any racial identity, but I had, I'm not sure what the term is for that, but I definitely was like, I'm the only child with an asterisk. So things like that, but no, I didn't have any racial things, but I do look forward to at some point going down the bloodline to see if there is anything else in there and perhaps that'll change and I can revisit this conversation another time, but not right now, ladies.

Lia:
Yeah.

Dr. Noelle:
I get the sibling thing. So on my biological mother's side, I am her only child. And she talks about me as an only child. But on my paternal side, I'm one of 13. And so, you know, and the two sides do not speak to each other, right? So there is this, again, this disconnect. I was raised in an adoptive family where I was the oldest. I'm pretty comfortable still claiming being the oldest, but people keep wanting to re-identify me as the reunion journey continues. So my identity is still not mine entirely, and I have to pick and choose when I stand up for that.

Lia:
Yeah, this is something that I think about often because I grew up as the oldest with my adoptive parents bio child. I have a younger sister, but in my... in my adoptive family on both sides, I'm actually the baby. And so that was really interesting as I was going through my reunion journey because there's all these narratives about how the baby is treated and I was spoiled and I loved every minute of it, because growing up in my adoptive family, I didn't get love like that. So it was a really nice feeling to have and to like, most of it was around feeling protected, which any parent should do, but unfortunately my adoptive parents did not do that for me. And so it was really nice to have that feeling of protection, like we're not gonna let anything bad happen to you, like if somebody messes with you, like you let us know. And so it was really comforting for me like in that sense, but it is weird when people are like, oh, like how many siblings do you have? And I have to like, I can't rattle it off like you Noel 13. I have to sit there and I'm- I'm counting on my fingers and I'm counting out, okay, you're on my mom's side, you're on my dad's side, you're on my adoptive, okay. And I have to sit there and I have to do that almost every single time. And then it's like, oh, well, like, are you the youngest, are you the oldest? And I'm like, it's complicated? Like, so I feel like that's something that a lot of... adoptees resonate with and honestly before we had this conversation I didn't realize other people had that experience But it is something that that I think about often and Noel you brought up something about like how other people identify you and you have to pick and choose what you choose to stand up for and I think that's a really good point because I think part of I didn't identity especially as an adoptee and I think even not as an adoptee, is that it's fluid. In one season of your life, you may identify this way, and in another season of your life, you may identify a different way, and I think that's okay. I think that's totally okay, and I think that's kind of like the beauty of it, but I think as an adoptee, like it's even more so fluid than I think the average person, because as you find out more information, it's like, oh, well, and then it's like, what do I do with that? Like I really resonated, Noel, when you were talking about you were talking about indigenous peoples and just how, okay, I don't feel like I can claim that because that wasn't my experience growing up. And that's kinda how I feel with the Puerto Rican heritage. It's like, ooh, I don't really know what to do with that. I don't feel like that's mine to claim. But I have a sister who has claimed it, she claims it. she claims it so much so that she is 100% fluent in Spanish. And I think that's dope. I think that's so cool. I wish I was fluent in Spanish. So I think there's a spectrum there and you get to decide what parts you want to take with you, which also leads me into how other people identify us, which happens a lot to adoptees, right? You'll tell somebody you're adopted and there's a few things that people tend to say, That's so cool. Like, you're so lucky. Or, do you know your real parents? I don't, but let me know if you find them because I'm looking for them. Like, so what, I think there's a lot of that of people just deciding like what it means and what it looks like to be adopted based on this mainstream narrative that has been pushed for so long, but you don't get to decide that for me. Like, I get to decide that, so. What comes up for y'all when you think about how other people identify you as it relates to being an adoptee and just like the fluidity of identity in general?

Dr. Noelle:
I struggle with my siblings. So I have two siblings that I talk to regularly. And neither one of them ever asked me if I wanted to be called sister, if I wanted to be called baby sister, none of those things. They just started doing it. And for the longest time, it felt so just disingenuous for me. I didn't, it didn't fit. It didn't, it wasn't part of my identity. And I think it was important to them and I think ultimately that's where I landed was that it was important to them for them to be able to identify me as their sister. But I remember thinking no one asked me if that is how I want to identify or how I want to be identified. So there's this powerlessness there around my own identity that I'm not sure that people who are not adopted, I don't think that they experience that necessarily.

Tosha:
And I can definitely understand that, especially with that right there. I always say I was raised as an only child, but I'm not an only child. So some know my history, some don't. I have to remember some times, because I did know early on that I at least had a brother, but within the inner circle, before I shared it, before people found out, it was just only child, only child, only child. Maybe it's the April Fool's Aries in me that keeps that only child going with some of those characteristics. But in mine, you know, Leah, you said it's okay to be fluid. I don't wanna be fluid, to be honest. I would like to know what my identity is. And every time, I guess I'm realizing how important it is to me. A couple of days ago, I went through an experience of my bio dad, not sure if I was really his, and that kind of rocked my identity. This is all I've ever known. And so, I just want to know, I don't want things going and changing. I just want to be solid with it. So I'm willing to do as much as I can to make sure I find out. Cause I, you know, I feel like other people that not adopt these, they know their identity. And if you want to add other subcultures to that, that's fine, but at least they know their basis. I don't know my base. And for me, it's very important. I would like to know it. I'm a mother. I want to let him know what his true history is and his true path. But until I know my own, I can't really tell my side of it. You know, I've got the other side, but I can't tell my side. So the identity part to me is actually quite frustrating. And I wish it didn't rock me to my core the way it does, but we're all human and that's what it does to me. And I'm tired of learning new things. I feel like once I opened the reunion can of worms, I was learning new things about me. that for a second I didn't even know who I was. Like it was just so much information and my reunion basically started in 2019 for the most part. And that's not very long ago. So I've gotten a lot of information in a very short time and I'm still trying to rationalize all of that. So right now, unfortunately I am very fluid. I just don't like it.

Lia:
Tasha, you mentioned that you don't want it to be fluid. You want to know that. And other people don't necessarily have to go through this. They have those core, that core part of their identity. And again, I think it gets skipped over a lot. But whenever you talked about your bio dad, he didn't know if he was your bio dad or not. It reminded me of my own experience because... For me, I didn't do the DNA testing, and I've been keeping up with, like, as you're going through this over the past week or so, and it's been interesting to see, and it's brought up a lot of feelings for me because... I didn't do it and the reason I didn't do it is because whenever I did my search, I paid a private investigator, she gave me all these names, I reached out to somebody and then they started rattling off these names and the names that they were saying matched up with what I had on the paperwork and I didn't tell them anything. I didn't... preface it with anything. So for me that was enough. I didn't feel like I had to do like a DNA test. But I remember when I was going through the process, my adoptive mom was like, well like you need to do a DNA test and like make sure. And I just, I just, it upset me because I felt like that's not for you to decide. That's not for you to choose. This is my journey and. if I wanna do a DNA test, then we'll do it. And I mentioned it to my brother and he was willing to do it, but I ultimately decided I didn't wanna do it. Also, I wasn't in the position. I was a broke fucking college student. So I didn't have the money to be able to do that anyway. And also Tasha, like you said, you didn't want things to keep changing. I didn't wanna take the test and then it'd be like, nah. this ain't your daddy. Like, I didn't wanna deal with that. I didn't wanna deal with those feelings. So for me, it was easier to just be like, okay, like this is like what it is. And to this day, I still haven't done it. But the fact that they knew my birth name and they knew all these people, for me, that was enough. I didn't need like the DNA test or anything like that. But I know that some people choose to do that and I respect that, but I think. where it comes into is when other people start to identify for you and like, this is how you know that these are your people because you have to do X, Y, and Z. And I don't think that adoptive parent, I don't think anybody has a right to decide that except for the adoptee.

Dr. Noelle:
My brother took the DNA test because my father is deceased. So my brother took the DNA test. And what I remember about that is that it took this long, it was such a long process for him. And I remember feeling kind of resentful that it just wasn't inherent, that this was something that needed to happen so that we knew. My mother and I have not taken a DNA test. She calls me her mini me, which I kind of don't love, but she calls me her mini me and you know what? We have a birth date. Literally the only way that we have decided that we are mother and daughter is that my birth date is the day that she gave birth to a baby girl. And I... For a while I thought maybe we should do a DNA test, and now I think that that would just be undoing. I have no idea what would happen to me if I found out that she was not my mother.

Tosha:
That's gonna be me. So I just literally, literally took the DNA test this morning. They swabbed all of my DNA out of both cheeks. There's nothing left. And I will tell you, I will be devastated because he is on all of my information. It's not coming from me or him. It's quote unquote naysayers. So I'm just like, you know what? We're gonna do it. And if it changed the course of my history, still be it. But I definitely resonate with, you know, well of not wanting to open that can of worms cause it could come back, you know, but. We'll have to see. That's how important my identity is to me. This came up three days ago. I'm like, I can't have this floating out. I need to know. So that's why I reacted so fast, took care of it, and now balling his court.

Dr. Noelle:
I was saying that we have you, Tasha. We see you and we love you.

Tosha:
Be there in a couple of weeks.

Lia:
Yes,

Tosha:
I appreciate

Lia:
girl.

Tosha:
everyone. I really do. Being on this, these ladies have been a lifesaver. AdoptE Twitter, all the AdoptE pages, us all going through this. And this identity is, I think is really gonna resonate with a lot of listeners and viewers.

Lia:
Oh yeah, most definitely. I find that this work, this show that we do, I find it to be healing. I find it to be very cathartic, to be able to tell our stories in a safe space without repercussions and nobody down our throat about what we're saying. I mean, yeah, there's trolls out there. They're always gonna be out there, but. we really haven't had to, like when we're recording at least, we don't have to deal with that. It's a very like safe space and I really appreciate it and value it. Like I look forward to getting together and recording our podcast on Friday nights. It's always a good time. So super thankful and grateful for y'all. So something else that comes up for me when I think about identity. I think a lot about my upbringing and the way the way that I was raised, which I think also ties into our previous episode about blackness. Again, I think a lot of people see blackness as a monolith and it's not. There's a whole spectrum of people and things like that. But a lot of the way that I was raised trips me up because I think about what my... bio mom would have done in situations and I'm like, mm, like this is not, this is not the way that it was supposed to be. Like this was not supposed to be like a core part of who I am. This was not supposed to go down this way, but it did and now it's like forever cemented and I have to sit with this and I have to figure this out and I have to navigate this all because I got adopted. by this family and things could have been so different. And I try to have this thing where I say, I try not to live in what if land because I think that you can start to go down that rabbit hole and for me, I can start to spiral very quickly and my mental health starts to fall to shambles. So I really try to stay out of that. But as I like continue to heal and go to therapy and talk about my story, it comes up more and more and it's really challenging and it feels, I don't know how y'all feel, but it feels really unfair to me. It feels really unfair for some of the things that I experienced that I just know without a shadow of a doubt wouldn't have happened, right? And I'm gonna be really transparent here. So with my adoptive parents, what comes up for me a lot is my adoptive mom's dad assaulted me. He sexually assaulted me for like five years of my life consistently and then probably like another two years after that, a bit more inconsistently. And whenever I told my adoptive family, first of all, whenever it was happening, this man was sick and he said that no one would ever believe me, nothing would ever happen. And I genuinely was like, no, like you're going to go to jail, like justice will be served, right? It's a big part of why I don't believe in. I really don't believe in justice and our criminal justice system and all that. But anyways, so he said all of that. I go to tell my family about what's happening to me and I actually told a friend and a friend, he told his mom and then it got to my parents that way and they were upset about that. But don't you know that my adoptive parents still allowed this man to come into our home? Like, I still had to see this man and he still continued. to assault me because he was still allowed to come over and he would sneak up to my room. And when I think about that, and I think about my mom, my bio mom, my bio mom was arrested for like resisting the police, which we all know like is coded language. But I think about that and I think about the fact that like, if my mom was here, she... she probably would be in jail for the way that she would have taken care of that situation. And I think about the fact that my adoptive parents didn't care enough to protect this child that they just swore that they had to have. And it really messes with me because it's like, dang, you fought tooth and nail to get me, you paid all this money, but I wasn't even worth protecting. What was the point of you getting me? And that's like a core part of my identity is just like this fact that they, not that they were unable to protect me, but that they chose not to protect me. And I have to like sit with that. I have to deal with that for the rest of my life because it impacted me, you know? So that's a lot of like where I struggle is with like, with that and just like this image that gets portrayed about adoption. I feel like I'm rambling a bit, but

Tosha:
Okay.

Lia:
just how adoption gets portrayed to be this really beautiful thing. And I know what I went through and I know my story and I'm like, you couldn't be further from the truth. And I'm not an anomaly. That's why we're here today. That's why this podcast exists because I'm not an anomaly. This happens so much more often than we think. It's just that people don't often talk about it and people are scared or shame. Shame dies when we tell our story. And I think that's a big part of why this exists, so that we can get our stories out there so that people can feel heard and know that they're not alone. And I don't know who that was for, but yeah, I'm here now and I'm better, but I have my days. I have my days, you know?

Dr. Noelle:
Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that. We love you.

Tosha:
We

Lia:
I

Tosha:
do,

Lia:
love you.

Tosha:
we do. And I think sometimes, like I've had some things go on in mind and it wasn't taken. And it's taken me some time to kind of think it through. And part of me thinks that they wanted to dismiss some things to protect the image of the product or to protect the image of adoption. Like, something, I'm sorry that happened to you, but that doesn't fit in our narrative of you. So we're just not gonna acknowledge it. And I am, you know how I feel, Leah. I'm so sorry that happened to you. I just feel like they, maybe they, I'm not gonna speculate. I just know that in my shared experience with tragic things like that, they just rather it not happening because it just damages the image of everyone. So they just rather sweep things under the rug like it never happened.

Dr. Noelle:
I wonder if adoption, if going through the process of erasing this child's whole life and making up a whole story lends itself to them being able to continue to do that throughout the child's life.

Tosha:
Yes.

Dr. Noelle:
So my adoptive mother got mad at my adoptive father. They got divorced. She changed our name, not legally. She just started using her maiden name. So we went all through school with a name that was not ours. And my children, because I had my children unmarried, my children are using that name. And it was never my legal name. But she just decided that one day that she was going to start using her maiden name and so were we. And no one stopped her.

Tosha:
It's like them making the narrative just never seems to stop. They just want to keep that going to protect their identity and the identity they wanted us to have.

Lia:
Yeah, and like the name thing is such a big thing. Like I find more often than not that adoptees' names aren't changed, like, er, are changed rather. There are very few adoptees that I know who have the same name, and it's always interesting to me, too, to hear the stories, because some people know, like, why their name was changed, other than like assimilation and ownership. Like... Sometimes there's a specific story attached to it. And to me, it's always interesting to hear the stories because for me growing up, my mom told me that they changed my name because my name was ghetto, right? And I mentioned earlier, like I was adopted by a black family. And so that right there is like internalized anti-blackness. Nothing about my name was ghetto. My mom was Muslim and so my name was of Arabic. it was, yeah, it was an Arabic name. And one day I decided to look up the name. I was talking to my friend that I mentioned earlier who was adopted and his parents didn't change. And he was like, have you ever looked up the name? And I was like, no, I think I internalized the messages that my mom was sending to me and so I never did. One day I decided to look it up and it is beautiful. Like my first name means unique, the middle name that my mom gave me means pure. And I think in light of the bullshit that I went through and like... how my innocence was basically stripped away as a child. I believe in namesake, and I think that, I think that that name was protecting me. I'm still here today, and there's no reason I should be here, but I am. And I think that there's power in names. And so I think when adoptive parents, families, prospective adoptive parents, prospective foster parents who are listening, if you are considering changing your child's name, I strongly urge you not to because you are literally stripping that child. of their identity and you are also stripping their biological family should they be interested one day of the child reaching out to them or their bio family finding them. Like my bio family was never going to find me because my name got changed. They were always looking under my birth name. And I think more people need to really think about that. Yeah.

Tosha:
Same here. They were searching for me under the name that she gave me under the name that I presume is on my original birth certificate That I've never seen But yeah, they said they kept looking and looking had no idea So had I not done my search we would never be here because they had nothing to go off of And I know there's a whole movement where I've seen a people one to get their original birth certificates Reclaim their first names and all of that. So the fact there's a movement there That's a really serious thing. So I do, people do consider it. I understand the desire to want to change the name, but it's deeper than you just wanting a baby. You're taking a baby from a family that's already established, that may have already given this child a name, whether it's at birth, one year, whatever age, if they already have a name, I think it should stay.

Dr. Noelle:
Those birth certificates though.

Lia:
Let's get into it.

Dr. Noelle:
I mean,

Tosha:
mine.

Dr. Noelle:
talk about identity, right? So I have never, I'm what, 52 now. I have never ever seen my original birth certificate. And if I decided tomorrow to go out and change my name and get a fake birth certificate, I would be arrested. but if you're adopted, it's okay. And under a court of law, it is sealed and kept from me. We don't do that to any other group of people in the United States. It's...

Lia:
It's sick. It's sickening because a birth certificate is the people who gave birth to you, the people who helped create you. Why in the hell are my adoptive parents' names on this certificate? You did not help create me, you bought me. You can get a certificate of purchase, you can get a receipt, but your name does not belong on my birth certificate. And I don't care, like it doesn't, because that's not what a birth certificate is for. Like, y'all just out here doing what you want to do to appease adoptive parents, to appease the system, to appease the industry, and I'm tired of it. Like, I'm tired of it because we get tossed to the wayside, we have to bear like the brunt of that. We have to deal with all of that. Y'all just out here making policy decisions that ain't got nothing to do with you, and you haven't taken the time to consult the people who are impacted by it. Like, why do I have to jump through hoops to get this document? Why do I not have free access to this document? Why do I have to pay a private investigator to find my family? Like, that's wild. If anybody else had to do this, like, we would just be like, why is this happening? But because we're adopted, so much just gets excused, looked over, like, oh, well, you know, it's cause you're adopted. Oh, well, it was... for the best, oh they were putting you in a better situation, oh you have a better life, oh would you have rather have been aborted? Well if you want to get into that we can because then I wouldn't be here and then I wouldn't be depressed and anxious. So if you really want to get into it we can because if I was aborted I wouldn't know anything. But anyways I'm going to get off my soapbox now.

Tosha:
No, you're fine. I'm

Dr. Noelle:
I

Tosha:
not

Dr. Noelle:
join

Tosha:
going

Dr. Noelle:
you

Tosha:
to have.

Dr. Noelle:
on that soapbox.

Tosha:
Oh, yeah, that's a great soapbox. We can all go off on that. But I'm just like the fact that there's paperwork for this adoption process. Why can't we even have like two things? The original birth certificate haven't still we'll deal with that later, but also have the adoption like separated because like the fact that you said before, y'all didn't give birth. So you shouldn't be on that document. And we can deal with that document later. Be on your own little document. Like, I don't know the solution. I understand the why is to protect and keep your secrecy, but if it's going to come out eventually anyways, I don't understand the need for all the secrecy. That was it for me.

Lia:
I feel like we could talk about identity for hours and hours and hours because I feel like it's just so much a part of being an adoptee. I hope you all enjoy this longer episode here. But as we wrap it up here, when it comes to identity and adoption, what are some parting words or some advice? What's something you want to leave with our listeners for today?

Dr. Noelle:
I'm 52 years old and I still have no clue who I am. I barely know where I came from and I haven't found a home for that identity yet. 52 years old.

Tosha:
Well, since we're dropping ages, I am 37 years old. Just took a DNA test this morning, literally two day this morning, to see if the person I've been told is my biological father really is. So I'm an identity limbo, very fluid, just surfing down the identity wave. So to give advice to anyone that's listening to that, I would say, take your time, stay true to yourself, self-care. I ended up having to take the whole day off because it... It enrages me so much. It was like an adrenaline high. I had to bring myself back down. So be kind to yourself. Take your time with your journey and hope you guys keep listening.

Lia:
So, following suit, I'm 28 years old, I'm the baby. And I would say I know part of who I am, but I don't think I'll ever fully know who I am, and I've come to terms with that. I've come to terms with the fact that I'm never really gonna know who I am. And the reason for that is because I was adopted. Ties were severed. And... there's information that I'm just never going to be able to have access to. People have died, the documents aren't accessible, there are so many barriers simply because I was adopted, because I was a bot. I no longer have access to this information. And advice I would say is just take your time and like recognize that it's a process and it's a journey. It doesn't have to happen overnight. It doesn't have to happen a certain way. Don't let anybody tell you what your journey looks like. Your journey is your journey and you get to decide what that looks like. So much of adoption is stripping you of decision-making, autonomy, all of that. And so if nothing else, let this journey on this identity journey be yours. If nothing else, let it be yours. and let you decide what that looks like and don't let anybody tell you otherwise, because it's yours.