Adoptees On

Today we’re back in the spirituality series and we are taking a look at cults and high-demand groups. My guests have both been impacted by cults and they have a theory that adopted people may be more susceptible to these types of groups. Donna and Sara have extensively researched cults since they got out and have a ton of knowledge to share with us. They both tell their personal stories of how they inadvertently found themselves in high-demand groups, how they got out, and what adopted people specifically need to know about cults. Full Show Notes Here Show Notes Recommended Resources Sara Easterly’s previous appearance on Adoptees On E143 and Donna’s E79 A Little Bit Culty Podcast The Vow: NXIVM Documentary on HBO Searching for Mom: A Memoir by Sara Easterly Terror, Love and Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems, by Alexandra Stein More reading, research, and resources on the topic: #iGotOut www.igotout.org | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook ICSA: International Cultic Studies Association Traumatic Narcissism and Recovery: Leaving the Prison of Shame and Fear by Daniel Shaw Terror, Love and Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems by Alexandra Stein BITE Model of Authoritarian Control by Steven Hassan Steven Hassan - What is a Cult? YouTube video with a whiteboard animation explaining the BITE Model Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships by Jana Lalich, Madeleine Tobias The Gift of Fear : Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence by Gavin DeBecker Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover Sunderland, Paul “Relinquishment and Adoption: Understanding the Impact of and Early Psychological Wound” presentation for iCAAD London 2019, August 12, 2019. (His reference about religiosity/fundamentalism as something commonly seen in adoptees with developmental trauma comes in around 45 minutes in) Podcast episode Roys Report “What Makes a Church a Cult” with guest Steven Hassan Connect With Us Donna: Email adoptee3 [at] gmail [dot] com Sara Easterly: saraeasterly.com | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Haley Radke: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Adoptees On: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | iHeart Radio | Spotify | Stitcher | YouTube Support Adoptees On One Time Donation | Monthly | Secret Facebook Group Connect Occasional Newsletter | Send a Note This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it, either by its hosts or any guests, is to be construed as psychological, medical or legal advice. Please seek out professionals in those fields if you need those services. The views expressed by the hosts of Adoptees On or any guests are their own and do not represent the opinions of any organization or other person unless otherwise stated.

Today we welcome Jack Dermody to the podcast. We talk about family secrets in adoption and the impact it has on all the parties when they are revealed. Jack also gets personal and tells us what happens when you start closely examining your adoptee experience in your seventies. We talk about family preservation and adoptee support, and how that looks like community showing up for each other on a large scale. Full Show Notes Here Show Notes Recommended Resources @GhostKingdom by Brian Stanton Tree of Strangers by Barbara Sumner It Takes a Village by Hillary Rodham Clinton Connect With Us Jack Dermody: Facebook Haley Radke: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Adoptees On: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | iHeart Radio | Spotify | Stitcher | YouTube Support Adoptees On One Time Donation | Monthly | Secret Facebook Group Connect Occasional Newsletter | Send a Note

We are revisiting the topic of estrangement today. Earlier in 2021 we did several episodes that examined estrangement and what made some of us decide to break contact with our adoptive families. When I was producing that series I always wanted to have an episode where we could talk about what it would look like to go BACK to our adoptive family after a period of estrangement. Can you ever go back once you’ve left? Today Ellianna shares her experiences of reunion with her birth mother, and what lead to a decade-long estrangement from her adoptive family. She talks us through her decision-making process for reunification, and I was amazed to hear the depth of how she’s looked back on this and processed all the things that have gone on in her life so far. Full Show Notes Here Show Notes Recommended Resources No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model by Dr. Richard Schwartz The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz Previous Adoptees On episodes about Estrangement (playlist on Spotify) or there’s a list on the Adoptees On website here. Connect With Us Ellianna Javed: elliejaved [at] gmail [dot] com Haley Radke: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Adoptees On: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | iHeart Radio | Spotify | Stitcher | YouTube Support Adoptees On One Time Donation | Monthly | Secret Facebook Group Connect Occasional Newsletter | Send a Note

Adoptee Remembrance Day is commemorated annually on October 30th. This episode has a collection of recordings that listeners have submitted to the show on what Adoptee Remembrance Day means to them. Haley also shares a way you can show up for fellow adoptees during November, using #DearAdoptees. Full Show Notes Here   Recommended Resources Adoptee Remembrance Day - commemorated annually on October 30th What is Adoptee Remembrance Day? Adoptee Remembrance Day Facebook Page RSVP to the Adoptee Remembrance Day Event on Facebook Adoptees Connect on Instagram | adopteesconnect.com | Facebook Use the hashtag #DearAdoptees throughout November Dear Adoption, dearadoption.com | Instagram | Facebook Crisis Hotlines: Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255 In July 2022, 988 will become the national three-digit code for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, some mobile carriers already support this number. USA Crisis Services Canada 1-833-456-4566 24/7 (text 45645, available 4:00pm - 12:00am Eastern time) Canada Crisis Text Line - text HOME to 741741 (USA & Canada) Crisis Text Line UK: text HOME to 85258 Crisis Text Line Ireland: text HOME to 50808 List of Suicide Crisis Lines Worldwide Sexual Assault Crisis Support (RAINN) 1-800-656-4673 (USA) Trans Lifeline 1-877-565-8860 (USA) Trans Lifeline 1-877-330-6366 (Canada) Connect With Us Haley Radke: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Adoptees On: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | iHeart Radio | Spotify | Stitcher | YouTube Support Adoptees On One Time Donation | Monthly | Secret Facebook Group Connect Occasional Newsletter | Send a Note

Do we have to choose between our biological family and our adoptive family? What about choosing between their religions or spiritual practices? Mar shares how they are both Jewish and Catholic. We talk through how they chose adult conversion to Judaism as a way to feel permanently grafted to their adoptive family. Mar is also very open about how recovery programs have helped them to identify as spiritual but not religious. Full Show Notes Here Show Notes Recommended Resources Adoptee Voices & their new E-Zine Adoptees & Addiction support group. You can hear Miguel talk more about it on Adoptees On episode 176 Connect With Us Mar Miram: rebelliondogs (at) yahoo (dot) com | Facebook Haley Radke: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Adoptees On: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | iHeart Radio | Spotify | Stitcher | YouTube Support Adoptees On One Time Donation | Monthly | Secret Facebook Group Connect Occasional Newsletter | Send a Note

Our guest today is scholar and author Susan Devan Harness. Susan shares from an anthropological perspective about the policies in place behind the Indian Adoption Project and why Indigenous placement with white families was preferred by the government. She also shares some of the current action in the US courts to undermine and remove the Indian Child Welfare Act and why it is so critical for us to pay attention to the cascading effects this could have. We do get personal too, about what happened for Susan in her forties as she unravelled what being adopted really meant: being separated both from her original family and from her original culture. Full Show Notes Here Show Notes Recommended Resources Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption by Susan Devan Harness Mixing Cultural Identities Through Transracial Adoption: Outcomes of the Indian Adoption Project (1958-1967) by Susan Devan Harness White Mother to a Dark Race: Settler Colonialism, Maternalism, and the Removal of Indigenous Children in the American West and Australia, 1880-1940 by Margaret D. Jacobs The Alliance for the Study of Adoption and Culture - Eighth Biennial Conference on Adoption and Culture, where Susan Devan Harness is one of the keynote speakers. Available virtually, most sessions were released on October 8, 2021 and there will be live Q&As October 22 & 23, 2021. Adoptees Off Script Book Club with Susan Devan Harness October 30, 2021 For Further Education: Podcast: This Land (Season Two) by Crooked Media Adoptees On episodes on the Canadian Sixties Scoop (Series 6): E110 with Dr. Raven Sinclair, E112 with Christine Miskonoondinkwe Smith, and E114 with Inez Cook Connect With Us Susan Devan Harness: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | susanharness.com Haley Radke: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Adoptees On: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | iHeart Radio | Spotify | Stitcher | YouTube Support Adoptees On One Time Donation | Monthly | Secret Facebook Group Connect Occasional Newsletter | Send a Note

Today’s guest is Dr. Erin Heim who has spent a decade of her life researching and examining both the biblical texts in the New Testament that mention adoption as well as multiple books written from an evangelical perspective of adoption promotion. Erin teaches us what adoption looked like during the first century, and spoiler alert - it’s nothing like modern-day adoption. Erin and I also put a critical lens to how adoptees are treated in the church today, and how conflating biblical metaphors of adoption and modern-day adoption is harmful and keeping churches from embracing a family preservation stance. Full Show Notes Here Recommended Resources Adoption in Galatians and Romans: Contemporary Metaphor Theories and the Pauline Huiothesia Metaphors by Dr. Erin M. Heim Dr. Erin M. Heim’s chapter “The Inward Groaning of Adoption (Rom 8:12-25): Recovering the Pauline Adoption Metaphor for Mothers in the Adoption Triad (You can find that within the book Making Sense of Motherhood: Biblical and Theological Perspectives ed. by Beth Stovell) Growing God’s Family: The Global Orphan Care Movement and the Limits of Evangelical Activism Book by Samuel L. Perry On Script episode interview with Erin Heim: Adoption in Galatians and Romans Connect With Us Dr. Erin M. Heim Haley Radke: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Adoptees On: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | iHeart Radio | Spotify | Stitcher | YouTube Support Adoptees On One Time Donation | Monthly | Secret Facebook Group Connect Occasional Newsletter | Send a Note

I am thrilled to bring you Barbara Sumner today. Her literary memoir Tree of Strangers is one of the best books I read this year (and I’m including my non-adoption-related reading in that). Barbara and I talk about some of the painful experiences she recounts in her book. We also talk about some of the issues facing the adoptee community today, including Barbara’s perspective on adoption reform vs. the complete abolition of adoption. Full Show Notes Here Share your voice for Adoptee Remembrance Day Show Notes Recommended Resources Tree of Strangers by Barbara Sumner Connecting with adopted people, Barbara mentions this Adopted Adults of NZ Facebook group Barbara’s Newsletter Barbara’s book club episode for Patreon supporters Connect With Us Barbara Sumner: Instagram | Facebook | www.barbarasumner.nz | Barbara’s Newsletter Haley Radke: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Adoptees On: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Share your voice for Adoptee Remembrance Day Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | iHeart Radio | Spotify | Stitcher | YouTube Support Adoptees On One Time Donation | Monthly | Secret Facebook Group Connect Occasional Newsletter | Send a Note

Today’s guest is brilliant poet Tiana Nobile whose recent collection of poems Cleave is an exceptional exploration of transnational adoption. Tiana shares her story with us from the deeply personal struggles to her in-depth research on the problematic history of adoption. Tiana also teaches us about contranyms and you’ll be in awe of the perfection of the title Cleave when she unpacks that for us. Full Show Notes Here Recommended Resources Cleave by Tiana Nobile, Spirit of the Staircase by Tiana Nobile Henry Goldkamp’s interview, “Disrupting Lexical Expectations in “Cleave” Surviving the White Gaze by Rebecca Carroll Find out more about Tiana’s upcoming workshops on her events page tiananobile.com/events Connect With Us Tiana Nobile: Twitter | Instagram | tiananobile.com Haley Radke: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Adoptees On: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | iHeart Radio | Spotify | Stitcher | YouTube Support Adoptees On One Time Donation | Monthly | Secret Facebook Group Connect Occasional Newsletter | Send a Note

We’re celebrating five years of podcasting with a special Ask Me Anything episode. Listeners submitted questions for me (Haley) from “what are your plans for the coming season of Adoptees On?” to “where would you invest a million dollars to help the cause of adoptees?” I also share a bit about this amazing leaf-teardrop hybrid painted by JS Lee. Full Show Notes Here   Mentioned Today My story way back in season 1 Barbara Sumner’s book - Tree of Strangers Episode 32 - How to choose a therapist Adoptee therapist directory: https://www.growbeyondwords.com/adoptee-therapist-directory/ Connect With Us Haley Radke: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Adoptees On: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | iHeart Radio | Spotify | Stitcher | YouTube Support Adoptees On One Time Donation | Monthly | Secret Facebook Group Connect Occasional Newsletter | Send a Note