098 – Trained In Trauma

Dr. Julie Lopez lives and works in Washington, D.C. Julie’s early childhood was happy at home, but it was her circle of friends that made her question just what was wrong with being adopted? When she graduated college, her need for information, for professional reasons, made her stumble across an old document she’d seen before, which impulsively steered her down the path toward reunion. Along hat road she found trauma that she was already prepared to handle and disappointment that she’s also thankful for because the whole experience keeps her grounded.

Dr. Lopez runs the Viva Center – https://www.vivapartnership.com/

You can find her book: “Live Empowered: Rewire Your Brain’s Implicit Memory To Thrive In Business, Love, and Life“

The post 098 – Trained In Trauma appeared first on Who Am I...Really? Podcast.

Julie (00:05):

Okay. I think behind every adoption there's usually trauma and then there is the just families don't give up children without some kind of distress and circumstance. You know, it goes against human nature.

Damon (00:28):

Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? This is who am I really a podcast about adoptees that have located and connected with their biological family members. I'm Damon Davis and on today's show is Julie. She lives in Washington D C Julie's early childhood was happy at home, but it was her circle of friends that made her question just what was wrong with being adopted. When she graduated college her need for information, for professional reasons made her stumble across an old document she'd seen before which impulsively steered her down the path toward reunion along that road, she found trauma that she was already prepared to handle and disappointment that she's also thankful for. This is Julie's journey. Julie grew up in McLean, Virginia. She said her parents were very loving people who were somewhat open about her adoption from Catholic charities. Julie was the oldest child in their house, followed by a younger sister, adopted from San Antonio, Texas. A few years later, her parents were approved for a third international adoption from Mexico when her mother got pregnant.

Julie (01:48):

And I remembered her asking me, cause at that point I was seven, you know what, what should, what would I like to have happen? And she was pregnant, I'm going to have a child. And we all knew, you know, the adoption had gone through and what should we do. And I said, Oh you know what a both, but they didn't end up adopting the child from Mexico. And then my parents had another biological child two years after that. So there were four of us, two adopted and then a pretty big gap. And then two more children that were biologically connected to my adoptive parents.

Damon (02:26):

So in their home there were two older adopted girls, a five year gap, then two younger boys who were biological to her parents. That age differential can be challenging. But Julie said she was still close with her younger brothers, almost like a second mother to them while navigating the normal healthy battles that come with having a younger sister closer to her own age, but in her family they didn't talk about adoption much, at least not as much as they could have. She said she didn't know enough to be curious and ask questions.

Julie (02:58):

If I brought it up they would would've talked about it, but most of it would be their anxiety about me being upset. Right. It was like they definitely wanted to shelter me from that and so it wasn't really talked about hardly at all unless it was like more factual. Like I had this fact sheet about my biological mother and father had their age and their weight and their height and their interests and their nationalities and stuff like that. I always had that

Damon (03:31):

This fact sheet wasn't comprehensive at all. It only spoke of her birth parents in generalities far less than what her actual non identifying information would have. Julie's parents let her see the document and she knew it was in a file if she ever wanted to review it again. What's interesting is the concept of adoption and its perception among her friends and in the community was the more challenging piece for her growing up.

Julie (03:56):

And so I would say the bigger impact on me as I understood it growing up was in school and the peers and things like that. The idea that I was adopted, I didn't have to know other people that were adopted. Like there was this one family in our church that had clearly adopted a child because their child was black and they were white. That type of thing, like an international adoption, but, but I didn't even really know them. I could just see them across like, you know, we were part of a pretty big church so I really, aside from my sister, didn't know anyone else adopted. Although like looking back there probably were other adopted people. I just didn't know that. But I definitely knew when we did, well, first of all, every time I went to the doctor and they would ask questions about health history, those types of in jokes like other kids would say about being adopted was basically equated with being unwanted or kind of defective actually. It was like an insult you'd say to someone if I would say I was adopted. Most of my friends didn't want that to be true. Mostly because they liked today and it's that like that's not true. I'm like, no, it is true. They're all like, no, because, because they, I don't know, I guess they thought I was normal and nice and kind and that couldn't be what an adoptee looks like or something. I mean, they never said that, but I just know they didn't want me to be adopted, so that was, I don't know. That was hard.

Damon (05:29):

In fifth grade, Julie had one special best friend. They were both little tomboys and they played all kinds of sports together. Usually the only two girls in the mix with the boys. At school, the kids were learning about dominant and recessive traits. Their assignment was to note their mother's eye color, their father's eye color, and the kids were supposed to use a chart to pick the probability of their own eye color.

Julie (05:54):

And the teacher picked mine as an example. Like she was like, let me have one as an example. She showed what I had written. Well of course I guess I had that fact sheet, but at that age I didn't, I don't know. I didn't know that info. So I just put down my adoptive parents info and my friend, so this is in front of all class, that's the whole thing. And she was just being like scientific, I guess, you know. She was like, what? Wait a second. That's not relevant. This whole discussion is not relevant because this is not her biological line. And I remember just feeling so embarrassed that she said that even though it wasn't mean hearted, it was like more trying to understand the truth or factual piece that the teacher was trying to teach. But I was like, Oh my gosh, like kind of horrified. I didn't keep it secret from people, but I wouldn't have announced it like that in front of, you know, 25 kids.

Damon (06:50):

When Julie finished college at 22 she was traveling a lot for work as a consultant in systems engineering and she needed documentation to update her...