The Resilience Project

Breaking Cycles: A Deep Dive into Adoption and Identity with Sydney Curtin

• Season 1 • Episode 22

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Join Julie Brumley in an in-depth conversation with Sydney Curtin about her complex adoption journey, healing from past wounds, and breaking intergenerational cycles. This episode offers profound insights into identity, forgiveness, and the power of owning your story.

keywords
adoption, healing, identity, forgiveness, intergenerational trauma, mental health, personal growth, adoption journey, mental health awareness, mental health advocacy

key topics
Adoption from multiple perspectives including birth and adoptive experiences
Healing from trauma and loss, including suicide and abuse
Breaking intergenerational cycles and personal growth

Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Complex Adoption Experiences
03:28 Sydney's Journey Through Adoption
07:32 Healing from Unacknowledged Loss
10:20 The Weight of Unforgiven Relationships
13:10 Understanding Identity Through Adoption
14:59 The Impact of Loss on Identity
18:33 Misconceptions About Adoption
22:16 Breaking Cycles of Trauma
29:15 Navigating Grief and Identity in Adoption
32:29 The Power of Coaching vs. Traditional Therapy
35:27 Finding Hope Amidst Grief
38:43 Confronting the Darkness of Mental Health
41:47 Reclaiming Your Voice and Identity
45:58 Writing for Healing: Courageous Considerations
48:58 Understanding Adoption: A Moral Perspective
51:06 Healing Without Labels
53:31 Words of Encouragement for the Journey

Links
Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink
Sydney Curtin's Website
Courageous Considerations Book
Sydney's Instagram

Website

Instagram: @juliebrumley_

Facebook: julierasbrum

TikTok: @juliebrumley_

Click to Join My Free Adoptee Facebook Group

You Tube: @julie_brumley

SPEAKER_02

Hi y'all, I'm Julie. I'm a trauma-informed adoptee coach and somatic healing guide. After overcoming deep abandonment wounds, I now help adult adoptees move from feeling lost and disconnected to experiencing profound self-belonging. I know what it is like to carry the weight of abandonment, to feel stuck in patterns of longing, adapting, and searching for belonging. To have tried every healing modality available and come up empty. My own healing has taught me this. The answers aren't out there. They're buried within me. And I'm here to guide you home to yourself. The Resilience Project podcast brings voice, visibility, and validation to the parts of adoption society rarely names, but all of us feel. Through an trauma-informed somatic lens, I explore the lived experiences of the entire adoption constellation with a tender emphasis on the adoptee experience. This podcast goes beyond storytelling into soul telling. It offers embodied insight, compassionate education, and a path towards awareness, hope, and strength. Each episode invites listeners to understand adoption more deeply, not just with the mind, but with the nervous system. And to reconnect with the truth, identity, and belonging that were always yours to come home to. Sydney found me on TikTok and reached out, and we've been going back and forth. And so I'm just really excited to introduce you to her because we're not just talking about adoption from one lens with her. We're talking about it from lived experience across multiple layers. Sydney Curtin, who is my guest today, has experienced adoption in a way that brings a lot of complexity to this conversation. And I think it's really important. She was adopted by her stepmom later in childhood. And she has also experienced a placement herself, meaning she placed her own child for adoption. And when you hear a story like that, you know this isn't going to be a surface level conversation. It already isn't before we started recording. So we're going to talk about loss, we're going to talk about identity, we're going to talk about healing from things we don't always get an apology for. That's the big one. And I think it's going to be a really important conversation because so many adoptees are carrying experiences that were never acknowledged, never named, never repaired, and yet they're still shaping how we move through the world, all of us. Sydney brings a perspective that is really honest, reflective, and deeply rooted in her own journey of making meaning out of what she has lived. So as you listen to this conversation, I just want to invite you to stay with yourself. Notice what resonates. Notice what comes up in your body. Because this isn't just about understanding someone else's story. It's about what their story might illuminate in your own. So let's get into it and welcome Sydney. It's so good to have you.

SPEAKER_00

It is so exciting to be here. I love talking to you already. So this is gonna be really great.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, I cannot wait. So are you ready? Are you ready to dive in? So ready. Seriously, maybe we should do grounding right now. Can you share a bit about your origin story? So your experience of being adopted by your stepmom at age 12. Would love to hear more.

SPEAKER_00

So, you know, a lot of adoptees get mad at this. I was just kind of briefly sharing this with you because it's not the context of infant placement. And so I have frequently experienced uh criticism for saying that I am also an adoptee when I further elaborate on the context. But yes, I lost my mom to suicide when I was 11, turning 12, and my dad got married very quickly after. And um adoption was one of those things that was always kind of in the background of our family. So my dad, he never knew his dad. And he was adopted at the age of seven by the man that his mother married. And my mother, my biological mother, her dad passed away when she was two. So she was also adopted by the man that her mom married. So this was kind of like an underlying thing that this is just the natural next step, the progression of life, if you will, when there is a loss, something that you're trying to cover up, something that you're healing from. That was sort of the adoption logo that was stamped across there. So when we lost my mom to all of that, and there was a lot of abuse and other things there too that were really complicated, uh enmeshment trauma, if you will. But my stepmom later went on to adopt us. Well, I'm the oldest. So I have two younger brothers, and by a big age gap, I'm five years older than my middle and seven years older than my youngest. So I felt very pressured by both grandparents, where they had adopted my parents. So why wouldn't Sydney then be adopted by her stepmom? This is a good thing. So it was, it was not cohort, but it was definitely, I felt the pressure of not wanting to be the only one that rejected her in that sense because it wasn't personal.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So, with that, I guess that season of your life was probably really difficult. So I'm curious. I mean, you describing it sounds difficult. So, what did that feel like for you internally? Not just what happened outside. Right. Right. What was going on within you?

SPEAKER_00

Man, inside was more chaotic than outside, and that's saying something. I feel like, especially as a girl, for in my experience, not especially as a girl universally, but being the only girl in the family that had lost my mom, it wasn't that I had lost my dad. That mother figure is who you tend to look up to as a girl, and vice versa, for boys, you look for that male figure. Um, not that both parents don't hold value, it's not what I'm saying, but it created this real identity conflict for me, where I felt that allowing my stepmom to adapt me was betraying my mom. Of course. But I also had this struggle too with my mom was really not good to me in the depths of her addiction. So is it betrayal? Uh, what does this mean about my identity? Does that mean that I'm erasing my mom? How do I honor both sides of this story without it taking away from me or feeling that I have to protect either of them because that's not my job as a kid?

SPEAKER_02

Oh my gosh, that's a lot.

SPEAKER_01

That's a lot to have to carry. Yeah. Forget throwing in puberty to that, okay? Like my gosh. And being a girl. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Let me say my dad was in over his head with me. I will give him that. Goodness.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I'm glad you're here today. I know you've struggled with a lot, so honored that you're willing to share it with us. So, with that loss, I think one of the questions that I have, and knowing what I now know about you, you talk about healing from what you never got an apology for.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Can you share what that means for you personally?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah, such a big one. Um I still walk this road.

SPEAKER_00

I still have to remind myself of this constantly because it's so relevant. Um the only loss that I suffered as a child was the big loss, I should say, was the loss of my mom. Forgiving somebody that's not here anymore looks really different because that wound isn't continuously reopened necessarily. They're not there to cause more hurt or to trigger emotions or memories. It's gone. And so you have this space almost. It's like death gives you space to be able to forgive, is how I started to look at it when I realized that a lot of my hurt actually came from my dad and from my placement. But that's saying that there's two sides to every story, and hindsight is 2020. So it's not omittance of information or responsibility in the matter. I take full responsibility for the things that I contributed to all of my life, like all of us have responsibility, obviously, in our own life. It was really the fact that I wasn't going to be held in bondage by the baggage that didn't belong to me. Um I used this analogy with somebody the other day. Totally came to me randomly. But if you're carrying a load of laundry and the little socks fall out as you're carrying it to the room and you're I noticed this when I was, so I was moving laundry and my my kid, my son, my three-year-old, he was behind me and he's picking up the socks behind me. And he's like, I'm coming, Mom, I got it. And it just clicked for me this analogy of we all carry baggage, right? And when you carry so much and you don't let it go, you drop things. Well, your children are looking up to you and they want to help you because they want to be like you. So my son is picking up these socks and he's helping me, and he is helping me because it's laundry. But if I don't deal with the laundry that I'm carrying around in my personal life and I'm leaving a trail that my kids then feel responsible to pick up, I am making my laundry, my dirty laundry, their dirty laundry. And that's not their emotional responsibility to bear. Oh. Clippable. That was good right there.

unknown

Lovely.

SPEAKER_02

Snip.

SPEAKER_01

We're we're we're done. Thank you for saying it's a good thing.

SPEAKER_02

No, but that makes a lot of sense. And I really appreciate that. One of the things that I talk about a lot with my content, with the things that I do is you don't have to carry this alone. A lot of times we think that it is something that we have to carry alone because people won't understand. And once we find that community and we're able to heal ourselves from within, then we no longer damage our kids in the background having to pick up all of the socks, right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so, so good. So I think one of the questions that has been on my mind with what you're talking about here, the apology situation. What does that kind of healing for you look like in real time, in real life? What have you done to move through that, the things you never got an apology for?

SPEAKER_00

I asked for forgiveness from the people that I was holding onto anger towards. So this is a new thing for me. The biggest relationship in my life that I've carried around a lot of resentment towards is my dad. And I haven't given him reasonable information to say this needs to be dealt with. I'm holding these transgressions against you. It's affecting my interpersonal relationships, it's affecting our relationship, it's affecting my parenting, everything. So it was my responsibility as the person carrying that against him to come to him and say, I need to talk to you about this. But I think that as adoptees and birth moms, we carry that identity thing. And so all of that, we felt like that was our burden to bear. So all of that anger, I didn't feel that it's I was within my right to go to these people and say, hey, I'm holding this against you and I don't want it to affect our relationship anymore. Can we talk about this? So it resulted, long story short, in this huge blow-up with him specifically. And I sent him an email and I genuinely asked him for his forgiveness for the anger that I had held against him. Now, I didn't put an emotional vomit email of you owe me apologies for this and this and this and this. There are some people we'll never get that from. And that's what I said in the previous one because some of our parents, some of the people that have hurt us, don't even realize that they're dragging their old laundry around. It's pointless with some of them, not all of them, but it's pointless with some of them to try to put that on the table for conversation. But it is meaningful and valuable to take the chains off and say, I'm done with this and I'm sorry that I allowed this to poison the well for as long as it did.

SPEAKER_02

Oh my gosh, that's so good. One of the things that I like to talk to my clients about is self-responsibility. And that's what you just described. But I think also it's this idea. Have you ever heard of the four levels of consciousness? I have, but I'm not familiar with like off the top of my head, I'm have heard of the concept. Fine. You described it pretty well, but the what you described was life happening as me. There's the life happening to me, which is you're the victim. Right. You're the one that has been hurt. Adoptees definitely have. Of course. What we have to learn, right? We don't, we don't, that is for sure what's happened, but it's learning how not to stay there, how to not stay in that victim place and learn how to have life happen by us. You move up a little bit in your awareness and that hustle and grind, but then you know exactly what I'm talking about. You go from a place of courage, from fear into courage and move into life happening through me. I'm beginning to realize that I don't have to be victimized by this. I can actually have some agency. And then you move into life happening as me, which is more enlightened, comes from joy, gratitude, all of those things. And I think as you were talking, that's what came to my mind. Because yeah, yeah, I just think it's so important for us to realize we're now adults. We can't blame other people anymore. We have to start taking responsibility for our own stuff. And once we do that, we can move into transformation. But until we understand that, we can't. Absolutely in my experience.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. The the book that I always reference in that self-ownership piece is extreme ownership. It was written by a former U.S. Navy SEAL. I can't remember off the top of my head, but I make all of my employees read that book because I hate the finger pointing and the, well, I didn't do this because this person didn't do this, or this is the SOP, but blah, blah, blah. But like I can't, I can't, I can't, I won't, I won't, I won't. He did, she did, whatever. Extreme ownership is exactly what you just described. It's that I am in control of me and that's good enough. So that's I I love that analogy. That's great.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it helps me so much. I would love for you to share that book link and who it is, and I'll put it in the show notes because very much could be helpful. So love that. Thank you. So, okay, let's move into a different level here. There's lots of levels with you. How do you see, yeah, I know, how do you see adoption shaping identity? Now, for you, it happened later in childhood. So you you lost a very important figure to a very tragic way, and then were adopted by a whole other person. So I'm just curious what that was like for you later in life.

SPEAKER_00

So I want to be careful about the way that I word this because being a birth mother impacted me deeper than being an adoptee. Absolutely. Totally get that. And I don't mean it to take away from it's just that there's this natural cycle of life. I I refer to this where as a child you expect to watch your parents grow up, grow old, care for them, they pass away. Your babies then watch you grow up, grow old, you pass away, so on and so forth. There's a reverse wound there that happens when you lose your child. That wound hits a lot harder than losing a parent. And that's biology. So having my child taken away from me in the manner that she was, in the context that she was, that wound affected my identity more than being adopted. The other thing that I learned throughout my adoption journey, being on both sides of the coin, is that we don't own these children. They're a gift. We don't own anything in this life. It goes back to that extreme responsibility, that extreme ownership concept of taking accountability for me. And I can't control anyone else. I can't control the way that they view me. I can't control the way that they act, they behave, they function in this relationship, especially when it's triangular, right? In this context of adoption. But what I do know is that my daughter was a gift that was entrusted to me to care for, as with the other two children that I raise. I will never put limitations on how many people can love my children. As long as you are healthy, consistent, functional, you're a good role model to them, right? Then we're good. Come love on my babies. They deserve all of that. It's not a competition of who did the most and well, I'm the bio parent, well, I'm raising it. I don't, I don't care about so I adoption definitely shaped my identity. But I think that it shaped my identity because of the dysfunction, not because of adoption. It was the adults in my life that demonstrated these dysfunctional relationships that then were it was wired into my head that this is what a normal relationship looks like. And what does that mean about me?

SPEAKER_01

You know what I mean? I do. So, with that, what did it mean about you? In clarity, not a damn thing.

SPEAKER_00

That's one sister, right? But as a kid, it meant everything to me because my dad owned a very successful business. Like is in the history book of the city that we grew up in. Everyone knows him. And there was this facade that went on at all of these business events and these parties that happened. And when the doors closed and everybody was home for the night, it was screaming and yelling and broken things, and cops called, and my mom's drug addiction. And I learned that the masks are what makes somebody either a functional person or not a functional person. Not inner healing. Not that we've dealt with this stuff, but how well can you fake it? Yeah. So it's almost like the mask kept you safe. 100%. And I wore them like it was my whole closet. I saw I saw a meme about that not that long ago where it was just these masks and somebody going into the closet and instead of picking out an outfit for the day had all these masks that they could put on. That's how I grew up. And it it deeply affected me at that time, not knowing any better, not knowing the wounds that I really needed to heal from. The masks became my identity because that's what I had learned. I learned that relationships were not functional, that yelling was normal, this toxicity was common, that I didn't deserve better than that, that this is what life was like. It wasn't until I realized that all of that stuff didn't mean anything about me. That was their baggage.

SPEAKER_02

So good. Yeah, it's important for us to realize that. So, with that in mind, what do you feel people misunderstand most about adoption and loss?

SPEAKER_00

Such a good question. I think that there's a lot of misconceptions. That ownership piece is really a big one for me that I said that my relationship with my daughter's adoptive parents spiraled when I started telling the truth about her biological dad one. And when I started calling them out for making promises that they I don't ever and think tended to honor. And it became this she's ours and we're gonna do whatever we want. The language switched from our daughter to our daughter, their daughter. She's no longer yours, she's ours. Right. And that's when I had to realize because that weight was so heavy and it still is so heavy. I would do anything to have my baby home. Not that I would ever take her from them. I would not put my six-year-old through that. She's six now. That's the only life she's ever known. But I would do anything to mend that relationship if it were possible or good for her. But I have two children that I'm responsible to raise now. One of them knew her sister before they took her from us. And that's been really hard. So the time and energy that I have, I pour into the two children that I do have control over. I'm life happens quick. Anything could happen to those two babies. And I found myself getting comfortable with the fact, well, those are mine. So I have to focus on the one that I've lost. I have to figure out a way to make this right to make her know that I fought for her, that I love her deeply, that I didn't want this, that this wasn't my intention. And I was not neglecting intentionally, but emotionally, my time and energy was going into something that I couldn't control. And it had to, it was just this epiphany moment where I was like, she's safe, even though I don't like the situation. She's loved by me, by everybody in my life that knows her, by them, by all of her family on their side. And it had to just be this is what I can control is these ones right here. All three of them are a gift. And I'm not going to take any of them for granted.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Are you able to interact with her or no? They've totally closed the adoption. I think that it's a result of her biological dad, which is a super interesting story. But and I and I could totally be wrong. I have not confirmed that, but uh, the intricacies of my adoption were bizarre. I didn't want to place birth moms have these stereotypes of drug addict, poor, homeless, whatever it is. I was none of those things. Her biological dad had a really toxic family and upbringing, stuff that I was not comfortable raising a child with him. And the county that I live wouldn't give me full custody of her prior to her being born, which meant I was risking having her taking him to court for to fight for her. And if they were to give him some. Form of custody, I was deeply uncomfortable with the implications of that, of him having her in any capacity. So that was one of the leading reasons that I placed. I never told her adoptive family any of that because I was trying to preserve his character. I didn't want to impact their view of him because I was going to make sure that she went somewhere safe. And I wanted him to have the time. We were so young. I wanted him to have the time to grow up and to heal from the things that neither of us had healed from, not only in our own relationship, like just in life. And then if they deemed that he was a safe person, then I trust them to keep her safe. And that was one of the reasons that I adored them when we first matched, is I knew that they would keep her safe above all else. That has since turned on me because now they think that I'm the threat because I'm sharing the facts of the story. I'm not somebody that's just gonna sit by the wayside and be like, oh, they decided to minimize our visits and they moved my daughter out of the country. I guess I'll just sit here and be a good girl. And I'm not gonna say anything. No, I'm gonna fight like hell for my kid because that's what I've done since the minute I found out I was pregnant with her.

SPEAKER_02

Gosh. It's heartbreaking. Each story is so unique. Well. And I think it's so important for it to be heard because people make assumptions about things. And with stuff like this, I don't think it's wise. So I'm curious if your own adoption experience at 12 influenced your decision at all with your daughter.

SPEAKER_00

100%. Uh it was talked about like it's no different than. But none of our family had had that infant placement context. So none of us actually knew what this type of adoption looked like. But it was, it was pitched to me. I'm gonna say pitched because that's I was so manipulated by so many people. It was like they do though. Yeah, well, it was the it was the agency, it was, I mean, her adoptive parents because they were not honest with me from the get-go. Um, I'm sure that they thought that they were being honest at the time, but it's a shit show. Um her biological dad being as unstable as he was, really, my family was the big, big problem. It was that all of the context of the adoption that I explained and that ran in my family, it was you're preventing generational trauma from repeating itself by making sure that she goes somewhere else. That's what that's actually an answer to your previous question question. That's what people don't understand about adoption. You're not eliminating a wound, you're creating a new one. And that's what adoption is pitched as if this is the that band-aid thing that I it's the solution. It's the solution. It's not a solution. I'm not saying that it's not loving. There's plenty of people that are angry at adoption. I'm I'm not gonna be that person. I'm angry at my adoption journey that it hasn't been honored and lived out the way that we have intended it to be lived out, but I'm not angry at adoption. It just has to be done with transparency, integrity, and honesty in order for it to work. It's not adoption that shapes identity necessarily, not directly, I'm gonna say. It's how the adults that model behavior towards this child and in their relationships that deeply affect a child's identity.

SPEAKER_02

And not just that, but even how they interact with the past, the culture, the stuff that they lost, right? Yeah. Oh my gosh, it's so deep. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about breaking cycles. So there's been a lot of them in your life. You have lived, like I've said multiple times, on both sides of adoption. You've lived on both sides. So I'm curious, those sides, what have they taught you that you don't think you could have learned any other way?

SPEAKER_00

I think on the adoptee side of things, I both of my moms, my adoptive mom slash stepmom and my biological mom were wildly different people. And I constantly when I lost my mom was trying to fill her shoes because I didn't know what else to do. Sure. Having a mom in my life after I lost my mom that was so different from her taught me that maybe I don't need to be like the person that I lost. It was they don't have to be compared because a a lot of people tend to marry somebody that was similar to the person that they my dad married two completely different people. I mean, not even in the same ballpark type of people. And that it definitely not right away, but when I got older taught me that I don't need to be like any of these people. I don't need to fit into a box to earn the love of somebody. I thought I would earn my dad's love by being like my mom because he had lost her. And because of all of the dysfunction in my family, I thought that being like my mom would mean that he loved me. And then for a long time, I thought maybe being the opposite of my mom would mean that he loved me. It was all this internal conflict of trying to win my dad's approval for a really long time. But seeing different women in my life just be who they were, both in the context of mom and the mentors that I was so blessed to have around me and be surrounded by, I don't need to be anybody other than who I am. And it doesn't mean that I'm not always chipping away at the sculpture and making the sculpture better and refining and improving. But yeah, I didn't need to fill the shoes and I didn't need to fit in a box.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so so when we talk about breaking cycles, what you did, what you were able to do, was that whole picture you talked about in your family of she needs to be with somebody else because the intergenerational trauma is going to damage her, right? What and sadly she is with somebody else right now, and you're fighting for her still and will forever. The cycle that you were able to break was I don't have to be like this, this intergenerational stuff. I can stop, and that's what it taught you. That's what I'm hearing. I can be my own person and be okay with that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, and it's something that I've thought about too in the context of, and I you bled it over for me. That's where I was going. It's it's the same vein. I am the total opposite person of her adoptive mom. And so I almost hope that she learns it, not through conflict or strife or loss the way that I did, but I hope that she sees value in the character of her adoptive mom because I saw incredible value in the character of her adoptive mom, but it doesn't take away from mine. It's just different. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And that's important to understand. So I'm glad that you're able to see that. That's healthy. Healthy. There's both. It's not either or, it's both and. Right. I just talked about that in my my email today. I talked about it in multiple posts recently because I just recently lost my mother-in-law of 30 years and it was heartbreaking for me. But realizing that I can hold both, I I I know I can, but when when I get hit, sometimes it's a reminder. It's okay to have what one of my friends calls the grief giddies, meaning it's quite funny. I lost her on a Sunday, Tuesday. I was weird. Energy off the charts. We were trying to figure out, yeah, it was so strange. And she said to me, You have the grief giddies. And I was like, What the heck are those?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

But what I realized was, okay, this is how I'm handling it. This is fascinating. Like it's holding that. That's the thing about adoption, is and being a birth mother. We hold both, and we have to figure out how to navigate that. A lot of kept people don't understand that the way that we do.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, no, no doubt. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Oh, okay. So when were those moments or were there moments when you realized I'm potentially repeating something here, or I want to do this differently? Do you have memories of that?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I had so many. And I still have them now. I mean, I think that that's just part of parenting too. It's not just adoption. I have moments where I'll do something where I'm like, crap, that's something that my dad would have done or my mom would have done, and I need to do that different. Where I catch myself in that moment and then go intentionally sit my kid down and apologize to them for where I messed up. That's something I didn't get as a kid, is a sit-down parent apology with an explanation at any age or any stage in life. Never got that. So I try to be really intentional with my kids about that. I don't know if that happened so much in adoption. I think that the biggest one would be an emotion and not an event, and that's anger.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Because anger is a secondary emotion. And a lot of people don't understand this concept, but anger stems from something deeper. And anger can feel so overpowering that people are like, I'm just angry. Why are you angry? And a lot of people will give you an event. They give you a, well, because this happened to me. So for me, I was angry because they stole my daughter from me in a legal context. My child was legally kidnapped. And I signed the papers along the way because I was told that that's what was best for her. My actual fear under that was deep unworthiness based on wounds that I still needed to heal. Was I not enough for her? And this abandonment complex, because as an adoptee, we have that too. So now I've been abandoned and I'm not worthy. Those are the things that needed to be dealt with. Um I don't think that it's any specific event, which is why I turned it back to anger because this is a common theme, not just in adoption, but in people's lives where people are so mad. They carry around this anger from all this stuff, and I they wear this as their walls. It's what protects them from being hurt. But underneath that or behind that is deep fear or inacquaissity or insecurity or whatever it is. So I just I encourage people to face that because it took me a long time to admit that that anger was just a defense mechanism. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02

I talk about that all the time. I call it an umbrella emotion because I feel like it holds so many other emotions underneath it. And it's important to figure out what are those, because if we don't get to the root of what they are, we'll continue perpetuating the cycle. So how you described it is is really good. I I feel the same way. So thanks for that. I like the terminology that you used. So when we went back and forth in our DMs, I remember something that you said that I wanted to switch gears and talk about. You mentioned that you felt like coaching feels more empowering. I know this are this is a real, we're like really turning right here, but I'm just curious about this. Can you share what shifted for you there compared to traditional approaches? Because this is one of the things that I really, really harp on. And I'm a trained freaking therapist. So I I want and you are too. So I'm just curious what what is that like for you? Why? Why do you feel that way?

SPEAKER_00

So the first thing was that, and I don't know if this is universal or not, but when I went to go get my I couldn't do anything with a four-year. I had to go for another two years and I didn't want to keep going to school. So that was one thing. But then when I actually started picking away at the regulations from state, from agency, I didn't like the way that I was expected to handle certain situations when I thought about the uniqueness of every story, just like we were talking about. I didn't agree with that practice necessarily, so I didn't want to spend another X amount of dollars to have another two years on paper. And I didn't want to be confined to state or government agency based on a medical field that didn't understand the uniqueness of every person's story. Those were, those were the first two big things. But as I started to do this, when I wrote the book, the first two, when I did the podcasts, when I started doing public speaking, people came to me and they said, I just felt so compelled to reach out to you. And I need your help. I've got questions, I need advice. And I did that for a really, really long time at no charge because it just felt like my calling. And I still do it sometimes without charging because that's just my heart for people. I think that there is more to be said for this concept of going back to extreme ownership than there is for this victim mentality. Psychology collectively tends to label things and then pass blame because if you have this label, then it's not inside your control. So you're just remove the responsibility. You're free and clear of everything that you do because you have fill in the blank. XYZ. Yeah. And I hate that. I will never settle for a life of complacency, mediocrity, or victimhood because of a diagnosis.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and I agree with you. I I hate labels. Yeah. I think sometimes labels can be helpful if it gives you terminology for things that you didn't have, if it gives you language. But that doesn't mean you hide behind it as a victim. That means you rise above it and become better because of it, at least in my experience. So I appreciate you saying it in those terms really, really good. Totally agree with you. The other question I have here is what have been some of the most impactful for you, the most impactful tools or practices that you have used in order to heal from all of this.

SPEAKER_00

Good grief. Did I say that out loud?

SPEAKER_02

You did. You used your out loud voice.

SPEAKER_00

Just I wonder how how effective Riverside is and the uh noise cancellation on that one. So funny. No, you know, it's it's because it's all over the map, is why I say good grief in the most endearing way, because I felt like I had exhausted all options. I mean, I did talk therapy, EMDR, cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectual behavioral therapy, group therapy. I mean, it's there. Name it. I tried it, I did it, and nothing was filling that hole. I mean, it was an impossible task. So the answer is the only thing that has really gotten me through it is hope. And I don't think that that is a it's not a psychology concept, of course. I mean, it isn't, it isn't, but it stems from my faith and believing that God's word reigns true and that he says that he will restore the years that the locusts have eaten away. Joel, 226, one of my all-time favorites. Love it. Really? Yes. Yeah, well, I mean, he named it, but the fact I am going to lose 18 years with my daughter, ultimately. And I have to watch the locusts just destroy those years. That's devastating. And the heartache that I carry from that is really, really hard to bear. No amount of psychology can stitch that wound and help that bleed. But believing that there is something sovereign past that hurt, and knowing the story and testimony that she will have the opportunity to have because of the life experience she's going to have, and just continuing to work on my hurt position so that I can be there for her, apologize to her for all of the things that I didn't know and have space for her when she's ready for that. That was more healing than anything that I learned out of a textbook in college. Beautiful, beautiful.

SPEAKER_02

The fact that you can hold on to hope of her own lived experience being something that provides for the healing. And you'll be there. You'll be there to catch her, hopefully.

SPEAKER_00

I will catch her until she's 85 years old. And we'll never not catch any of my babies. I have to do it for my five-year-old now. I mean, she misses her sister dearly. And so right now I just do that.

SPEAKER_02

I can't, I mean, it's it's heartbreaking. Did you know? I don't know if you've seen the new research out there, and I can go and spend time looking it up, but I I'm not going to right now. But I posted it on Facebook where I don't know if it's been reproduced, the study. I can't remember, but you may have seen it. And I've talked about it. I talked about it early on in my podcast, but I even said this has not been reproduced. I'm just saying this is what they discovered originally. And it was that adoptees were 35 times more likely to attempt suicide, and that birth moms were 37 times more likely.

SPEAKER_00

I just made a post about that. I don't even think we're friends on Facebook, but I just made a post about that. Well, there you go.

SPEAKER_02

Like, so you know exactly what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_00

This well, how do you describe it? That but being a child that has lost a parent to suicide makes you X amount of times more likely. So I just had that stacked on, stacked on stacked. I I was screwed statistically. Look at you. You're here. Yeah, baby.

SPEAKER_02

Because now the question is I don't remember if you told me this, but were there, I'm gonna be really frank here. Were there suicide attempts in your history? Big time.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I um I had a very, very serious one and uh it was super critical. That was scary. I was 18 years old, I think. So it wasn't even, I wasn't a birth mom yet, actually. I was I had lost my mom at this point and I was an adoptee. My kids changed everything for me in that perspective. I haven't had an attempt, nor will I, since the birth of my daughter, because she, the weight that I had to carry of losing my mom, I genuinely believe that when she got sober, she was so remorseful of the pain that she had caused and all of the really, really traumatic things that she had put me through, me specifically because I was so much older than my brother. You're the oldest. That she didn't want to face all of the hurt that she had caused. I genuinely feel like her soul was just crushed and she couldn't do it. I've been there and I I was there when I lost my daughter, but that cop-out, and I'm gonna call it that, is making that burden now my child's to carry. And it's not hers to carry, and it's not my son's to carry. So yeah, there's been times where it felt so dark that it was like there is no way out. This is this is it for me. And there's been stages of my life where my baseline was so dysfunctional, not like actual in my life behavior, I've always had my my businesses, my book, but where in my personal life I was just so low that all of the things that would bring a normal person, joy, and happiness, I didn't have any of that because I didn't have my daughter with me. But it's not my children's responsibility to heal from those things. And I have to, I say have to because it's still an active and conscious thing that I have to do. I have to be able to forgive myself for what I didn't know and making the decision that from the bottom of my heart I felt was best for her with the information that I had.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Oh my gosh. It makes me think of Maya Angelou's quote, and I'm gonna massacre it. But she basically talks about that you have to forgive yourself for what you didn't know, basically. And that is what it sounds like you're describing. And I'm so sorry that you felt so much despair and turmoil and trauma within you. It's heartbreaking to me. And the reason why I feel like you a calling and a pull towards what I'm doing. It's just it's heartbreaking to me. So one of the things it goes along with what we've already talked about, and you've described it, but there clearly were times in your life where you felt like you had to shrink, where you had to perform, where you had to silence yourself in order to feel safe or accepted. I don't mean to be frank, but silencing yourself was a part of what you just described.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And that is so sad. But can you can you describe other situations in your life that you feel impacted you in that way where you felt like you couldn't have a voice?

SPEAKER_00

It was such a good question. And it's the same thing as anger being the secondary emotion. This applies to so much more than just adoption. But family unit, it can have the clown, the cheerleader, right? That structure and psychology. And mine was the scapegoat for a really long time. Everybody passed blame to me. And I wore that because I thought that maybe that would earn people's love, that maybe they were aware of what they were doing to me and they were gonna thank me for it later, or they would love me more for being willing to carry it for them. So I trained myself and was trained by the adults in my life that love was earned based on works. That was not just an adoption, but I did do it in adoption too, because I thought that if I shrunk myself in order to make my daughter's adoptive parents more comfortable, who are really just piss poor at communication, then maybe they would be more comfortable honoring the promises that are the sole reason I chose them to begin with. So I just constantly kept shrinking and I'll ask less and I'll try less, but my heart just burned and yearned for these promises that had been made to me that were the only reason that I trusted them to begin with until I finally said, F, I am done. I'm not my mom, I'm not my stepmom, I'm not my dad. And I'm seriously just gonna tell my story, and anybody that has a problem with it can stay in the way and get run over or move. You can absolutely kick rocks because I'm not doing it for anybody else.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I'm doing it for my kids.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And I'm doing it for all of the birth mothers that were lied to and coerced into believing that they were fundamentally not enough that made them choose adoption, especially from an agency perspective, is coercing young mothers in vulnerable situations to make permanent decisions based on temporary circumstances.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And that is a wound that no mother should have to feel. You should never be made to feel so unworthy or so small that you can't get out of the situation that you're in. If you want to parent your baby again, not angry at adoption, if you do not want to be a parent and you want to give your child the best opportunity for life, then I I hope that you read my book and I hope that you have a beautiful adoption journey. But for the mothers that make decisions that are based in fear like mine was, no one should ever have to feel that way. And no adoptee should have to carry the wound of did my parents want me? Did my mom want me? And what does this mean about my identity? And am I more like them or am I more like them? And where do I fit into this role? And how do I appease both sides? That's not a child's burden to bear. Nope.

SPEAKER_02

Totally isn't. You're absolutely right. Bam. Mic drop moment. Okay. So what did it look like for you to begin reclaiming your voice? Burning a lot of bridges first.

SPEAKER_00

It was a I laugh because it was uh it didn't start constructive. I'm not gonna lie. It started with FAFO. I'm not I'm not messing around. It really was if you're in my way, you're in danger, kind of thing. And and it came back down to a much more level place where I can hear and respect somebody's opinion and at the end of the day stay, I I respect that and I don't agree with you. And here's why. And take that information and do with it what you will, because that whole concept of nothing belongs to me, I'm not going to diminish my light or dim my light or soften my voice to make somebody else comfortable in my presence. If it doesn't align with you, if it feels wrong, that's okay. Not everybody has to like me, not everybody has to believe in this message, but I am convicted in truth and I'm convicted in justice. And the whole philosophical debate about what those two things mean is a totally different story, but these two things are my guiding compass. If it doesn't align with what I believe is true, what is good, or what is just, then I'm gonna fight. I'm gonna fight to make it right.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. As we should. So good for you. I'm I love that. You've mentioned your book a couple of times. So I would love to know what inspired you to write courageous considerations.

SPEAKER_00

It was the deterioration of my relationship with my daughter's adoptive family because it was this whole concept of all of this knowledge that I have of psychology. And when you're going through that journey, it is like drinking through a fire hose, especially when you know nothing about adoption. It's all coming at you at once. You don't know, do I talk to a lawyer? What questions do I ask? Are they judging me? Am I allowed to ask this? You're not even thinking about what you want. You're just thinking about getting through the next nine months sane and not shaving your head like Britney Spears in the early 2000s. You're just trying to stay above water. And that there was such huge consequence to not knowing what questions to ask my daughter's adoptive family to know if we were compatible for life. With a marriage, I use this analogy when I describe my book all the time. When people get married, they will often read a premarital counseling book, regardless of if they're religious or not. We know that there are five topics that statistically lead to divorce more often than not. So if we can agree on these five major topics, then we are statistically significantly less likely to have to go through a boatload of paperwork, right? So I just copy and pasted that same concept of these premarital workbooks and I put it together in an adoption journal for both adoptive families, adoptees, and birth families. Granted, it's primarily tailored to my corner of the triangle just because I wanted to be respectful of families. But these are the questions that you should ask if you're entering into an open adoption so that you know if your goals are truly aligned with this family. It's not like divorce where if you get married and it doesn't work, you just can go your separate ways. There's a kid involved forever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I love that. So who did you actually write it for? I mean, I think you sort of said that, and what do you hope it gives them?

SPEAKER_00

The first person that I wrote it for, first and foremost, was my daughter because I wanted her to know how uneducated I was. And I mean that, and like not even a it's not rhetorical or condescending or belittling to myself. There's so much that I wish I would have known so that her and I would have had the relationship that I genuinely desired. The second person that I wrote it for was myself. It was a forgiveness piece to myself. And it took me quite literally, shoot, it got published last year. So from 2019 until last year to finish the book. And I it's 200 pages. Um, and then the workbook is another 200 pages. But 400 pages took me six years because every question I had to stop, and some of them I had to stop for a long time and forgive myself for not knowing to ask that question.

SPEAKER_02

Gosh. So, in a lot of ways, I asked you what were your tools. That was one of your tools. It was definitely one of them for sure. Absolutely. I hadn't thought of that, but yeah. Yeah, I think that's amazing. So, what are you most passionate about people understanding when it comes to adoption?

SPEAKER_00

Man, okay. Adoption is a concept that originated from a biblical perspective, regardless of if you're faith-oriented or not. Adoption was designed inherently to be a good thing. People corrupt adoption. Yep. Not God, not faith. It's ego and insecurity and fear that get in the way of adoption being functional. So that's on a moral level, all of the people that are angry, genuinely angry at adoption as a whole, that's healing work that needs to be done. And I say that in the most genuine and loving sense because I follow some adoptees and some birth moms that are big mad at adoption. And I love every single one of them. I was that way too. Then I had to look inside and realize, okay, this is not an adoption thing, this is a Sydney thing, and we got to work on that. From a legalistic side, I think that the thing that I really want people to know is that agencies won't tell you that you have the right to a legally enforceable agreement, regardless of if post-adoption contact agreements are legally enforceable in your state or not. When I placed my daughter, I was told that everything was done through the agency and I didn't ask questions because I didn't know what to ask.

SPEAKER_02

How would you know?

SPEAKER_00

Right. So if I had gone to a lawyer or an independent attorney, we could have drafted an agreement that would have been legally binding between me and her adoptive family. Nobody was going to tell me that because it deters adoptive families. It costs more money. There's a lot of reasons that they don't mention it. But if you if you're listening and maybe you're considering adoption, or maybe you've got an adoption plan in place in PACAS is what that stands for, post-adoption contact agreement. You're not in one of the states where that's legally enforceable, which we're at 23 now or something. So we're getting there, but you can still get a legally enforceable openness agreement.

SPEAKER_02

Wow. See, that's stuff that's really important to get out there. People don't know this. So I appreciate that. Thank you so much. So for the adoptee listening or watching right now who feels stuck, unseen, or like they're carrying something they can't name. What would you want to say to them? Just because you can't name it doesn't mean you can't heal from it.

SPEAKER_01

Ugh. Good. That's really good. I love that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's uh it takes time to get there sometimes, but it it doesn't mean that that's where you're stuck, and it doesn't mean that that feeling is part of who you are. Because for a long time I I mean, people would refer to me as an angry person. Uh and I hated that, but I I also didn't for some time because it again, it protected me. So I didn't know why I was angry because I hadn't done that work yet. But just because you can't name it doesn't mean that it's not something that you can heal from. Don't let that define you. Yeah, so good. Your feelings too are valid. Sorry, I didn't like it. No, no, no, it's okay. All of that is real, like it's don't let people take those emotions away from you, but don't allow yourself to live stuck in that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, oh my gosh, so good. Yeah. And I'm sure you would say the same thing to a birth mom. Absolutely. Yeah. Totally. Yeah, I love that. So lastly, and this one's kind of deep, but if you could go back and sit with your younger self during one of the hardest moments, what would you say to her?

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I was raised by a single dad for a while. Like I just didn't have that relationship with my stepmom. And it's just funny because the first thing that came into my head is should you just slap her upside the head. Like, knock that off. Quit it. What is this? Like that's angry me. Healed me. No, but I, you know, I think that I would want to find a way. As a person, I've always been somebody that doesn't accept compliments well. You're not alone. There's a lot of adoptees and birth moms who I think are the same. Yeah, totally. Totally. I think that's part of that identity thing, right? Where it's like we don't trust what people say about us because we haven't really figured that out yet. If I could find a way to penetrate my heart in one of those moments with words, it would be that none of this defines you. You're not confined to any of these labels. You are a daughter of the highest king, and your only identity needs to rest in that. And everything else is just noise that's trying to distract you from your mission and your plan.

SPEAKER_02

So good. My goodness. I love it. Okay. So if you had anything else you wanted to share with the listeners or those watching, what would you share with them? Anything that comes to mind? That same thing.

SPEAKER_00

Because I think that the I think that you have a really unique and powerful gift that you have like recently started this journey and you've got such a body of people that have come to you and reached out to you. And so I feel very strongly convicted that the people that are listening are the people that need to hear exactly what I would have told my younger self. Is that like let those words penetrate your heart because you are enough. None of those labels define you. And none of this situation defines you. You are you without everything that's happened to you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Very true. Very true. Goes back to the whole victim mindset versus things happening by us, through us, for us, all of them. I love that. So good. Well, I'm gonna bring it in for a landing here. So, so grateful to have had you, Sydney. Thank you so much for your honesty and willingness to go there with me today, even in some of the hard questions. You didn't even sneeze at them. So I'm so so grateful for that. I did say good grief out loud one time. You sure did, and we're definitely gonna keep that in there. We're keeping it. But there's so much in this conversation that I know is going to land deeply with people, and I'm so grateful for that, especially for adoptees who may not have had the language for what they've been carrying, as well as birth moms. So grateful for that. If you are listening and watching and something in this conversation resonated with you, I just want to remind you that you aren't alone in it. A lot of what we talked about today, loss, identity, feeling unseen, trying to make sense of experiences that didn't come with closure, that we didn't get apologies for. These are not isolated experiences. And there is space to explore them. So if you'd like to connect with Sydney or learn more about her work or check out her book, Courageous Considerations, I obviously will list all of that in the show notes for you. As always, if this conversation stirred something in you and you're wanting more support and exploring your own experience even more deeply, I know sometimes this is hard. You can find my information as well. There, it's all there. So you can reach me directly in the DMs. I'm sure Sydney is okay with that too. I'm not really sure. I didn't ask you. How do you how do you want people to reach out to you?

SPEAKER_00

My email's on my website, but DM me, it's the same on Instagram and TikTok, Sydney Curtain Official. So I'm I know you'll tag that below, but yeah. Always reach out to me.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, cool, cool, cool. Love that. You can also directly DM me in any of them, and I it's me talking, just so y'all know. It's me. I will respond. I'm always open to hearing what's coming up for you. And if this episode felt meaningful, I'd actually love for you to share it with someone, to review, to like, to whatever you want to do to make it more seen for people that can hear it too, because these conversations really do matter. They create understanding, they create connection. I mean, I've got this whole new great connection with my friend Sydney, and yes, they remind us that even in the complexity that we hold, we aren't alone. And I'm so glad that you're here. So, one last thing I want to remind my listeners and viewers about is the upcoming live event that I'm holding with Dr. Liz Debeta in May, the 23rd and the 24th in Moscow, Idaho. I'm really excited about it. It's a retreat for adoptees. I think it's really the first of its kind. And I'm also gonna put the link in the show notes for you all. But thank you so much for listening today and have a happy Thursday. Talk to y'all soon.