Hey there, it's Melissa Brunetti, and welcome to the
Mind Your Own Karma podcast. Hey there, Karma crew, Thanks
for joining me for this episode of Mind Your Own Karma, The
Adoption Chronicles. And it's funny if you're
watching the video on YouTube, I feel like I'm about to do a
Karma Files episode like one of my spooky paranormal episodes
that I used to do back in the day because it's so dark in
here. I've been having major computer
issues and I am working on this late at night so it is dark and
I hope this comes out because this is about the 4th take of
this episode that I'm doing. And yeah, so anyway, thanks for
joining me. I am doing a solo episode today.
I just wanted to bring up something.
I was on TikTok the other day just scrolling through and came
across a video from It looked like China and it was an
adoption video, very triggering even for me.
And it showed a worker at the orphanage bringing out a child,
maybe nine months, 10 months old and handing it to a very nice
looking white woman with blonde hair.
And the worker handed the child over to the lady.
And as soon as the child got in her arms, the child started
crying and reaching towards the worker and was in flight and
fright mode, trying to get away from this woman who, you know,
poor lady, was trying to comfort this child.
So she was holding him tightly, him or her tightly, and patting
him on the back and kissing him on the cheek and, you know, kind
of bouncing him up and down trying to tell them it's going
to be OK, it's going to be OK. And the child was just
traumatized. You could see it in its face.
And the harder the child struggled, the more the lady
held tight to the child. And pretty soon the baby stopped
crying and just had such a look on its face.
I can't even describe it. Sadness.
It wasn't sadness. It was defeat.
It was defeat and it was surrender.
And it was the saddest thing I think I've seen in a long time.
It really, really got to me. I kept watching it and watching
it and just thinking this isn't real, this isn't real, this
isn't happening to this poor child right now.
And so I decided to repost the video and I put a caption that
said something to the effect of tell me adoption trauma doesn't
exist or something like that. And not that I should be
surprised at some of the comments that I got, but I was
pretty shocked at some of the comments.
I got some pretty attacking comments.
And I was just like, did you just watch this poor child on
the screen? Did you just watch that video?
How could you be so cold and heartless after watching that
child? I just, I just couldn't
understand. Where's the humanity?
The only thing I can think of is that people really want to stay
ignorant. They do not want to know the
truth about adoption, drama. And it just really hit home for
me the fact that I need to keep doing this podcast and you all
need to keep coming on podcasts and telling your stories.
Good, bad or otherwise. They're all stories about
adoption. Every single one of them, and
every single one is educating the world about the intricacies
of an adoptee or a birth mother or an adoptive parent.
And all three of us need to come together and keep telling our
stories. That is the only way that we are
going to make a difference. And I'm wanting to know what is
the difference that you are wanting to see in the adoption
industry and how do you think we can continue to change that
industry for the better? You know, right now the adoption
industry is a $75 billion a year industry.
The selling of children for profit.
That should not be happening, Selling children for profit.
It should not be putting price tags on children's heads.
You know, I've been hearing things that ethnicity and the
way a child looks or where they're from or how old they are
can can dictate what that price tag is on that child.
And I just remember as a kid growing up, the Cabbage Patch
dolls and if you ever had one or even saw them in the store, if
you ever went shopping for one, that's kind of now I'm like
looking back going wow, that's kind of adoption.
Like you go there and you're like, I want a blonde haired,
blue eyed little girl with long hair and a little freckle on her
face and you know, had the birth certificate where you write your
name in and the baby's name And you know, looking back, I'm just
like, wow, we were normalizing that.
We were buying these Cabbage Patch dolls and adopting them
and not even realizing, you know, what we were doing.
But I mean, it's true of the industry, right?
You can go into an agency, sit down, have a baby brought to you
and you literally can say I'll wait for the next one.
This one isn't really quite what I was expecting.
You know, I wanted a brown haired, brown eyed daughter that
might look like me and this one's got red hair and green
eyes. So I'll wait for the next one.
That's not the Cabbage Patch doll I wanted.
And since I'm paying for it, I want to get what I want, right?
I don't know. The whole thing is just so
disheartening and just really disgusts me.
And so hearing these comments that people were saying, I'm,
I'm just it, it was literally the craziest thing.
So this one lady says by the end of the video, the baby calmed
and was resting in her mother's arms, weighing the option this
child has. I'm thinking this is better.
I'm just like, did you see the child's face that wasn't calmed
and resting? That was defeat and sadness and
grief. Like, I don't know what you were
watching and you know this one. So everyone should stop adopting
children and let them stay in orphanage being abused and not
loved or cared for. And I just said there are other
alternatives to explore first, and then this one says yes it
is, but that amount is OK because they'll provide a steady
home and love that the mother couldn't and she chose it to
happen so her baby could be happy and healthy.
And I just said that doesn't negate the fact that the child's
been traumatized. They may not cognitively
remember, but it's stored in their nervous system and their
subconscious. This one.
She will adapt well with all the love and care she'll receive.
Children flourish in an environment of love and feeling
safe. And this one?
Traumatic but necessary at times.
Unfortunately, she'll not remember anything in a short
time. Luckily, being so young, I'm
sure it's better than the orphanage.
And this one's my favorite. This person and her name is Yes,
my name is Karen. Yes my name is Karen said what
an ignorant post. Really.
Who is the ignorant 1 here? And I did have one person.
I mean there was like secret people liking my replies and
things, but you know, not many that were brave enough to like
get in this arena with me and like really talk about it.
But there was one lady and she did give it to some people in
here. So Antonia, I want to thank you
so much. She was there right there with
me and and telling and and educating people, educating
people. I had one person that said
agenda much because she must have gone on my profile and saw
that, you know, I have an Adoptee podcast.
And I thought, yeah, if you wanna call me advocating to make
adoption better, if you wanna call that an agenda that I'm
educating the world about adoption, if you wanna call that
agenda, then yes, yes, I do have an agenda.
My agenda is to help the adoptees coming up, you know,
have a better experience than a lot of us have had.
That is my agenda, and it's just crazy.
Some of the things I've been hearing lately coming out about,
you know, back in the Baby Scoop era, it was pretty common for
birth mothers to put an alias name on the birth certificate.
But this is a legal document. Whether you are giving someone
up for adoption and you know this isn't going to be their
real birth certificate in the long run.
That the moms were encouraged to give an alias on this official
document and it was totally legal to do just blows my mind.
And I've heard this so many times.
And it's like they were told to put an alias on there to save,
you know, their face, basically. And so it would never get out
that they did this, you know, that would never be on any
official documents or anything. And the other thing is that the
father, a lot of times they, you didn't even have to put a
father's name on the birth certificate.
You didn't even have to. It's totally fine, just leave it
blank, you know, And the father didn't even have to sign any
paperwork relinquishing this baby.
And this is part of what we're all advocating for is, you know,
right. Is like having that kinship,
adoption where the baby can stay in the family.
And if you know the adopted chameleon, you know her father
and her story where her dad didn't even know that that she
was a she was born. He wanted her.
Like he would have had her, his family and him.
They would have raised her. They had no idea she even
existed and what would have happened, You know, she claims
that she had a great adoption experience for the most part.
But what would have happened if she would have been given the
chance to have her biology, her heritage, her family around her
to raise her? How would things be different
for her? She'll never know, you know.
And so she's got to make up for lost time.
And I don't know a lot of times, and I don't know if this is how
it is for her, but a lot of times those relationships,
they're just not the same. And if you were raised and grew
up with that family, those connections, the blood is there,
but the connection, there's something missing.
I'm not saying 100% of the time, but a lot of the time there is
just something missing there. And you know, I don't know.
I'm just, I'm so disappointed in society.
I just can't believe how scarred we've become and how callous.
You know, being kind and compassionate doesn't cost
anything, except maybe a little bit of your time doesn't cost
any money. It just means you care and that
you're listening and that you're validating and that what is
wrong with validating someone, You know?
I had one lady saying everybody wants to be validated and you
know, like basically put your big girl panties on and get over
it, you know? And that's like saying stop
crying, you know, or just stop being angry that that really,
that always works. Somebody tells you to stop being
angry. I can snap right out of it.
I am. I'm good.
No, it doesn't work that way. We all know that.
So how is that helping? How is that helping at all?
It makes no sense. And you know we can.
You're OK with selling a baby for $70,000 when that $70,000
could have helped a family stay together for a long time?
You know, I had Jenny Becknell on the show and she is a birth
mom and an adoptive mom. And you know, she was saying
that her adoptive son, that his grandfather wanted to raise.
I think they had five kids in the family, I believe.
And the grandfather wanted to raise them, but he couldn't
raise five kids without getting some kind of assistance to help.
But they'll give assistance to a foster parent to help raise that
child. But they won't give money to the
grandfather to help raise that child.
Even Jenny was like, I don't want this money that you're
giving me for this foster child. We're going to adopt him.
And I don't need that money. I'll take care of him.
And they were like, no, no, this is your money.
The system is so, so, so broken. I don't even know where to
begin. I just really, really don't.
But I think where we can begin is what I was just saying about
being kind and compassionate. Needs to start with each other.
And it needs to not only start with each other because I see a
lot of rocks thrown back and forth and adopting land on
social media. And I talk about this a lot
where you know, just because you validate someone else's story,
it doesn't mean that you agree with their opinions.
Everyone has their own opinion based on what they went through
and what their story is. And we don't have to agree.
We really don't. I can still validate your story
and you and what you went through, even though that wasn't
my story or what I went through. And I could say I am so sorry
that that was your experience and I understand how it has
shaped your opinion about adoption.
I get it. That might not be my story, but
I understand that that is your story and I respect that.
There's nothing wrong with that. Secondly, I feel like we need to
open up our compassion floodgates for the entire Triad.
And I know this isn't a very popular belief for a lot of
adoptees. And if you're not there yet,
it's totally fine. I get it, I get it.
But I just feel like your story as an adoptee didn't start the
day you were born. It didn't start the day that
your mother signed those adoption papers.
It started way before that, and it could even be generations
where this started. It was how your birth mother was
raised. It could be how your grandmother
was raised. It could be how your
grandmother's grandmother was raised.
And there's so many factors in it, but it starts with the birth
mother at the very least, and whatever she was going through.
And it took me a long time to get to a place where I could
step back from my own trauma and what I was going through and
look through the lens of my birth mother and look at her
story and what I knew of her story and think, man, that must
have been really hard. That could have been so
different if her mother hadn't died when she was six months
pregnant with me. If her father hadn't remarried
and started a new life and and just disowned her, basically
saying that he wasn't going to help her raise me.
If my birth father hadn't left her and went to Vietnam and
basically didn't want anything to do with her or me at that
time, if none of that would have happened, my story would have
been super different. Very different.
And I wonder, looking back how different that would have been
for my birth mother. Her life took some crazy turns
after giving me up for adoption, and I just wonder what choices
she would have made that maybe would have been different and
how her life would have been different.
I know she struggles. She has told me that doing that
was the hardest thing that she's ever had to do, and I can
totally understand that from being a mother and having two
children of my own. I don't know how you do it.
I've heard birth mother stories, I've read books, the memoirs,
and I've had them on the show and every time I just sit here
and, you know, before the interview.
I'm always like, how am I going to get through this interview?
How am I going to get through? It's they're heartbreaking,
heartbreaking stories that just get to me.
They get to me even more than the adoptee stories.
But it's just given me a lot of compassion, being able to being
in a in a place where I've healed to a point where I can
step back and I can look objectively.
I think at her story and give her a little of kindness and
compassion and understanding and forgiveness.
You know and it took me a long time to get to that point that I
could release her and which in turn released me and gave me
freedom to keep healing myself. That was part of my healing
process, was forgiving her and releasing her from any any
feelings, any ill feelings that I had towards her because of her
giving me up and any feelings that I had feel of feeling
abandoned and not wanted. You know, for a long time I was
like, how can a mother do that? How can a normal person give up
their child? It's got to be it most of the
time. I'm not saying 100% of the time,
but most of the time it's got to be something pretty
substantially traumatic for a birth mother to be able to do
that. And I feel like in order for
them to protect themselves, they can sometimes put a shell around
them and become very hardened even to us adoptees that want to
come back and have some reunion, some kind of reunion experience
with them. So it can be super hard for them
to come around and crack open that shell.
And it's almost like a like a callus that you just keep
rubbing and it gets thicker and thicker and thicker and you, you
know, that's the only way you can survive.
How else can you survive that? And adoptees do the same thing.
You know, we just keep building up that callus, thinking that
it's going to protect us from the pain and the hurt that we're
feeling. But it really doesn't.
It really doesn't. It doesn't.
It doesn't help. It just kind of builds this
cocoon around the pain. It's still there, it's still
there. And I want you to know though,
that I've done a lot of things in my healing journey, and I
believe that each step that I took at a certain time was what
I was supposed to be doing at that time.
And I just kept experimenting and trying different things and
kind of found my healing combination.
And I want to encourage you that if you are still struggling to
don't stop looking for your healing combination.
It is out there. There's so many things and
therapies and groups and just so many resources out there for
you. And yes, I am a somatic,
mindful, guided imagery practitioner who would love to
work with you because I know that it can heal adoption,
trauma and the primal wound and so many other things.
And if you think that's part of your healing combination, I am
happy to talk with you. But I also have a list of other
resources that if you think that one of these other things is
going to help you, try it. What have you got to lose?
You can regain yourself.
You can regain your authenticity by healing this wound.
And the best part about healing is not only do you get to live
the life that you were made to live and live out the purpose
that you were meant to to to you were put here on this earth to
live. But you can help others along
the way. Now that you're healing and you
can talk about it. You can talk about it without it
hurting. You can talk about it.
And I I can't even explain the piece I have now talking about
my story. There's really no heartache
there. And I'm not saying that I am
totally healed, because as soon as I say that, there's another
layer of fog that will come up around me.
And I'll go, OK, now there's this coming up.
I don't think you're ever 100% healed.
I really do think it's like peeling an onion.
But I do feel like it's a journey that I'm willing to take
on because I learned so much and I gain so much from the journey.
So if you are struggling, I have a list of resources for you.
Please get in contact with me at mindyourownkarma@gmail.com or my
website mindyourownkarma.com. If you are interested in somatic
mindful guided imagery, there is some information on there.
I also have a dedicated website somatichealingjourneys.com and
you can get in touch with me all over all over the place.
Social media, I'm everywhere. Find me.
Mind your own karma, you will find it.
But anyway, I just kind of wanted to hear from you guys
because I really do want to know what changes would you like to
see Now let's be realistic, adoptions not going anywhere
anytime soon. So saying abolishing adoption is
not going to happen right now. So what can we do right now?
What other things can we do to get the word out, to educate the
world and do it in a way that is received well?
Because probably putting that video on Tiktok and putting that
caption on there and then I did feel triggered.
I did. The comments were ignorant and
very triggering and I probably acted out in a triggering way,
some of my comments back, which is not bringing about the change
that I want to see. So that probably wasn't the way
to go about it. So what can we do?
What ways can we go about it in a way that is receptive, where
people want to hear what we have to say?
And if you have any ideas, please get in touch with me.
Again, mind your own karma@gmail.com I'd really like
to know. I feel like doing this podcast
I'm advocating quite a bit and I'm doing the best I can, but if
there's anything else that I am missing, please let me know.
I would love to hear it. So I think I am exhausted and
I'm going to get off my soapbox. And yeah, I I think I've said
all I can say today. Thank you for being my listening
therapist. Every single one of you that is
listening today. I feel much better, but I am
very tired from all this TikTok nonsense.
So I think I've learned my lesson.
Maybe not, but I hope I have anyway.
As always, take what you need and leave.
But you don't. And always remember to mind your
own karma and I'll see you next time.