Adoption and the "VOID" research.

Thank you all whom have shared your stories and resources on the video I posted of my mom speaking up about how she felt being adopted.

I really didn’t know too much about this feeling and I posted it because a young woman I follow spoke up about it and asked if anyone had something similar. I remembered having shot this of my mom, so I mostly did it for her. WOW, i never expected it to get such feedback. It breaks my heart to know so many people have this feeling and so many have been misunderstood about it.

I would LOVE for more awareness to be shared surrounding this… so I am compelling some of the resources shared.

This BOOK seems to capture all the information regarding this wound. The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child", by Nancy Verrier, Amazon link here

This is a BOOK for parenting a teenager who was adopted. “ Parenting in the Eye of the Storm by Katie Naftziger” Amazon link here

Here are a couple of Websites that have a lot of information on this wound. Which is identified as “Relinquish trauma”

https://mariedolfi.com/adoption-resource/relinquishment-trauma-the-forgotten-trauma/

a website that gives “Trauma-Informed Care: Resources and Information” particularly for kids: https://www.theannainstitute.org/TIC-RESOURCES.html

AND a YouTube video on “Adoption and Addiction” by Paul Sunderland. it is about an hr long, but you can change the speed where the setting are:-) Click here

And the biggest takeaway I got from these resources for both the adoptee’s parents and those who were put up for adoption is:

You need to feel the depth of the void, of that feeling, parents need to hold a safe space for the one experiencing it with compassion and understanding. It is NOT a personal attack it is a psychological trauma that needs to be felt as it can be healed.

If a person is an adult now, there is something called “INNER CHILD” work… here is a great article on it. We need to “Re-parent” at times, so if you are an adult with this wound you may need to look into creating a safe space to allow that healing to occur as if you were the parent.

I hope this all helps and if you have more suggestions on resources.. please comment below.

TRAUMA

Music is so key in my life, so I am first sharing the song that I am listening to while I start this blog.. its called “veins”

As I sit here in the same spot that only 2 nights ago this very spot was causing me trauma, I reflect on how quickly we can recover once we give ourselves what we need.

2 nights ago I felt scared and alone. My dog was ill again, it’s been almost 3 weeks of constant stress and uncertainty, not quite knowing what is going on in his body.

Its got me on an emotional rollercoaster of feeling like I had to say my goodbyes a few times. I made peace with it, but he didn’t go. Instead, I just had to become a full-time nurse, death seemed almost more desirable. If I am being honest and for me that is the ONLY way I am choosing to be. To face my own realities of what’s going on inside even if it doesn’t sound good. I was in this EXACT same position with my mom, actually my whole life, this constant state of fear. That thought “is she dead?” always ringing through my heart.. There were times I wished to be relieved of that pain and anxiety. AS cruel as that sounds, it is real.

2 years before she died, she was sure it was coming, and like always, I flew home to be with her! I mentally prepared the best I could, to walk on those “flaming coals”. I had told her when her Emphysema was getting REALLY bad that if she chose to overdose that I would not hold it against her. At that time, there was nothing as “assisted passing” for terminally ill people. So here I was by her bedside as she put so much substance in her body, I tried to sleep to pretend I didn’t know what she was doing.. she was so scared and I just wanted her to find her peace, or maybe “I” also wanted my own peace too. At one point, she said she was scared.. so I held her hand and comforted her… telling her “it’s ok”, over and over. She calmed down slowly, and I felt what felt like her “transitioning”. AND I was prepared to let her go. HOWEVER, in came the care worker in her building, she saw my mom look unconscious, so she started clapping her hands and calling her back! I was so pissed as she came back. AND I had to sit with that shame of that thought. AND to have a serious pep talk with myself because that was not OK, or so I thought. My internal dialog saying… “how dare you, how dare you want someone to go for your own peace of mind, How SELFISH can you be!” AND so I was angry at myself.

And I told myself.. “you are not in charge of another person's path in life”. HOWEVER, I never fully addressed my OWN pain, I NEVER comforted the girl that spent her whole life in fear. Who never knew safety. Why couldn’t I give MYSELF the same level of compassion I was able to give to my mother?

1 year later I was called again to be by her side. ALONE. Alone, because she trusted me, she always said, “I just know everything will be ok when you are here.” So as always.. I ran to her “side” and put myself “aside”. I put my own fears aside, my own pain, to be STRONG once AGAIN for her. But It wasn’t fair! I didn’t want to be a savior, I wanted to be ALSO taken care of, and here I was again, JUST giving.

So skip to 2 years later, and I am AGAIN, nursing! did I attract this? How could I have seen that my dog would get sick? AND YES, I guess that is how LIFE works, we will keep having the situation repeat until we get the lesson.

They say TRAUMA affects the body, it HIGHLY affects the immune system (probably why I always got sick as a kid) and It HIGHLY affects the nervous system (why I have anxiety). So WHAT can I learn from this?

I can learn that I don’t need to be ALONE! I don’t need to be STRONG. I don’t need to be SAVIOR. I don’t want this. SO I reached out, I asked for help. I went on TikTok “live”, because I built a community there, for others, but honestly, maybe it was mostly for me. It’s a community I feel safe with because it is people that have been through what I have been through.. most of us, actually probably ALL of us have been traumatized in life, in some way. So I turned to them when I didn’t want to be alone, and I FINALLY admitted that. AND I was held, with such love and compassion. I was free to cry, I was free to express how scared I was, I was FREE to just have “another” there to take care of me. I asked if it was ok I went to sleep while the “live” continued, and I slept for a little bit, I asked people to speak to each other, and they did. And as I opened my eyes, as I went in and out of sleep, they were there.

I watched a video today on why “self-healing” doesn’t work. it’s because we NEED community. If anything Covid has shown us, is the importance of connection. AND my trauma can be reset, the more I give myself what I was lacking, connection. SO THANK YOU!!!! To everyone that supports me, that shows up in so many different ways in my life. THANK YOU!!!

I am writing this as my dog is being taken care of by a friend, a suggestion from another “TikTok” friend. It was EXACTLY what I NEEDED a couple of days off to breathe again, without feeling guilty about needing that. I HOPE one day I will get to meet most of my TikTok family. BECAUSE that’s what we are “FAMILY”

haha and this is the song I end this with.. it just came on.. it’s called.. “Howling around my happy home” that’s what this is.. this “family” is HOME!

Smiling through the tears

I have never known a life without pain, actually, neither have you, we are born into this world streaming our mothers are screaming. Pain is a part of life and depending on how you see it is how you accept it. For me it’s taken me so long to value my pain, like my mom, I pushed it away, “avoided and distracted”. Many addicts do this with drugs, non-addicts find other means to do this.

But what I have come to know.. if my pain is a testament to my love. How deep the pain is, is how deep the love is. As that just hit so hard in the heart right now, as I am going through one of the most painful experiences in my life.

I’ve had animals in my life all throughout my life. I've foster and have been able to let them go to other homes because I knew I wasn’t ready for them. Meatloaf (my dog) was different. within minutes of meeting him, he claimed me. It took me a sec to give that back, I had to get past all the hair, the endless amounts of walks, and really just to see past my own selfishness to see what was on the other side. I guess it’s similar to unconditional love, the love I shared with my mom. It took us SO long to find a way there, but we achieved it. For us, it was about getting past our own pain to see the other for who they were. RIGHT there at THAT moment, we HAD each other. So often we forget how precious THAT is, till it is gone. We forget that even though THAT person, situation, thing, animal.. isn’t how WE imagined it to be.. IT is a gift.

This past year has been such a gift. To see you embrace life, to know you were rescued from a meat market in China and brought all the way here, and to see YOU (Meatloaf) so grateful for every moment. You were NEVER mean to anything. YOU were beyond excited for every new day, even though you LOVED to sleep in, you loved when I would finally wake you up with a “good morning”. It was like an “I love you” but you liked it better so I would say it to you instead of “I love you”, it was “ours”.

You taught me so much about myself, you showed me the way I show up for life and for others. I watched “golden compass “ with you and YOU were 100% my extension. I LOVED to watch you with others, I never felt jealous of the love you gave others, even though I could see you look back at me with eyes to check. You taught me of real love, love that is endless and all giving, a love that has no lack. You reminded me; this exists in the world, and to believe in it again. But to first give it to myself.

You held me every night, were there when I lost my grandma, were there while I came to finally heal these deeper wounds within.

YOU were a gift and a reminder to never take a gift for granted.

I am writing this while you are fighting for your life, and no matter what YOU choose to do, stay or go, you will forever have the home I promised in me. YOU will always have my heart. I LOVE you. “GOOD MORNING”

update: 3/30/20

So he is out of the hospital, he had every type of blood test, x-ray, ultrasound, and even surgery. The issue has never been fully understood. I took him home with the risk he would still not make it, but not really having many other options.

it’s over a week since he’s been back and he still throws up every 3 days, sometimes for a solid 12 hrs, others just a few times. I have him on a super strict diet of chicken and rice with carrots and potatoes. He is passing it, but not very well. Its been beyond taxing on me, plus the threats of Mexico.. the parasites, and “distemper” which is rampant on the streets and almost always kills the dog within 48 hrs + it SUPER contagious. He can not have the vaccine because of his health, so I have to watch him like a crazy person to make sure he doesn’t interact with other dogs or smell their droppings, or that he doesn’t eat anything that can get lodged in his intestines.

I KNOW I am strong, but it’s been too hard on me and I finally broke yesterday and asked a friend to take him whom I trust and has a backyard. So my nervous system can have a break. So that’s where we are. We are still planning to leave Mexico in a week. Fingers crossed this all resolves, Vet bills are crazy in the US, so I am nervous, but I have to trust everything will be ok.

Oh LIFE so much about trust, I didn’t even see this coming and it defiantly knocked me off my feet and reminded me about the importance of grounding. SO I AM practicing that. It has also brought up others introspections on TRAUMA which I am writing about in the new blog called “TRAUMA”.

"Ode to the End of the World"

I found this amazing woman when I was going through a dark period of my life. I had some deep trauma come up from when i was abused as a child and I was looking for something to make sense of all the darkness I experienced.

So if you ever feel like you are overwhelmed.. I recommend listening to this. I like to close my eyes and listen like it’s a book, it can be distracting to watch it even though it’s a video. I hope you enjoy and if you want, maybe leave a comment on what you think of it:) And maybe follow and leave her a comment I am sure she would LOVE to know this is being shared <3

Giving ourself permission to feel our pain

Yesterday I felt very broken. My heartfelt broken and I believe it’s because I didn’t want to post another loving video of my mom and I, because of all the kids that are still hurting (MYSELF INCLUDED). OUR pain is valid. JUST as our parent’s pain is valid, JUST as a parent, brother sister cousin, etc to an addict’s pain is VALID, AS-IS the ADDICTS. Pain is a 2-way street. We have to see that each of us has our own pain, and it has a road to be on, just as much as the others.

With my mom and what I say to others that are looking for advice, is “DON’T TAKE ON THE OTHERS PAIN” it’s not yours, yes you may have done something to cause it, and YES by all means apologize and try to make it right, but you cant always fix another’s pain. AND you have to accept that they feel as they do.

For so long I hid my pain from my mom because I was afraid of hurting her, and YES sometimes its too much and it can set them off to relapse, but when I confronted my mom about how much it was hurting me I had no choice. It was HER or ME. I chose ME. I needed to let it out, to her, and if that meant I would lose her forever, I was willing to do that. Because I was sacrificing myself for her.

MAYBE just MAYBE we can heal our pain without telling the other, but she was my mom and I needed her to know that I (MYSELF) needed a MOTHER! I remember being so nervous about going to confront her, I often smiled a lot during these times, but my heart was racing a mile a minute. Then when I got to her place, she was so upset with me, but I wasn’t leaving without telling her.

I was lucky because it changed the dynamic of our relationship a bit. I was always my mom’s mom in a way, but I actually let her in a bit more, I slowly let her know some of the things that were going on in my life, like heartbreak etc. I kept that all from her because I didn’t want to get hurt anymore. I didn’t want to give her my vulnerability (MY HEART) again and have her crush it.

But little by little she built my trust up again, she showed me she wasn’t going to run away from me again, and she answered her phone and tried her best to just listen to me, or to give me some advice. She surprisingly was good at giving advice even though she didn’t take it herself:-)

SO yea, yesterday was a day for me. For me to honor my own pain before anyone else’s, so no, no one got a happy video, instead I videoed myself getting hurt and upset. (still have to edit that one) and TODAY I feel so much better about it. For taking my own advice, and PUTTING MYSELF FIRST.

I hope we can all remember to do this from time to time. To give ourselves the opportunity to be upset, angry, hurt. TO NOT BE VICTIM to it… means; you don’t keep repeating it over and over, with a poor me, but yes, we can acknowledge these things that happened did hurt and we have EVERY right to feel what we FEEL, and when we are ready, we can let them go.

Sending everyone love (INCLUDING myself)

Tarah

ps. I recently found this book that has been helping me with this process

Are you in the GRIEVING process?

JUST before my mom passed away I knew it was coming. I randomly met a person that was going through a similar experience and he shared this from Ram Dass, it really helped me so I share it with you, maybe it will help you too.

"Death is our greatest challenge as well as our greatest spiritual opportunity. By cultivating mindfulness, we can prepare ourselves for this final passage by allowing nature, rather than Ego, to guide us."
- Ram Dass

Click Here

He also has many great books on this subject.

Another POWERFUL speaker in this area is Tara Brach click here

According to https://www.healthline.com/health/stages-of-grief#denial Click to read more in detail.

The five stages of grief are:

• denial

• anger

• bargaining

• depression

• acceptance

I Hope these two talks allow you to find a bit more peace in your grieving process and please know. You NEED to let it out, so if you find yourself like me, in a line at a grocery store when the tears start streaming.. Just let them. No one knows what you are going through and you don’t need to hide it for anyone else's sake.

Sending so much love to all your hearts,

Tarah

Child of Addict(s): How to begin HEALING

First off, if you are like me you have probably been parenting them your whole life! Now listen to this..

YOU are NOT their PARENT!! and SMILE, because thank got we are not:) NOW lets start living for us, so we can be there for others!!!

Now if again you are like me..I know it is soooooo hard to accept that we can’t fix our parents, well maybe we can help them, but that will be another post. Now remember because were children born into this world with parent(s) with addictions, we probably have a lot of the same ways of coping and being, so HI!!

ALSO if you had to walk away from your parents I’m SURE it is KILLING you, Because I know you SOOOO wanted to stay, but it was probably too much pain. It was probably taking you down. AND if no one ever said this to you.. THAT IS OK!!

I state that the way for ME a way to be friends with my mom, came from healing my own pain. SO LET’S START THERE.

When I was doing all this work with my mom, I had no idea what I was doing, it was all new territory, so I offer you now anything and everything I have learned along the way, to help heal my pain, and I hope there is something for your own process here.

1. “YOU ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT PROJECT YOU WILL EVER WORK ON”

   KNOW you are NUMBER ONE, that means if you are not ready to be there with your parent it is ok to disconnect until you feel you are able to, and if that is NEVER that is also ok, we HAVE to be honest with our hearts and understand what we are capable of. This leads me into us understanding BOUNDARIES.

2. BOUNDARIES:

   https://www.instagram.com/boundariesarebeautiful/ is a great page on instagram

   https://www.tiktok.com/@shefasjourney? is a great page on TikTok with lots of tools, plus you can do your own research, enter #boundaries on either platform or google and see if someone resonates better for you.

   This will be your OWN journey of healing, so follow those that speak to your soul and start trusting your intuition.

   As children of addicts were didn’t have good role models on how to take care of our needs, so we will have to learn these things on our own, plus if you have a stable healthy “other” (which can be a family member, friend, etc) that you can watch and model from, do that. I had my second mom and my grandparents as role models for healthy relationships.

3. Start learning about “CODEPENDENCY” it’s not actually what we used to think it was…where we couldn’t be alone. It is so much more diverse than that. It’s how we have been trained as children to survive. We learned that in order to get our basic needs met we had to sacrifice our voices. We need to learn how to undo this… trust me it is a PROCESS I am still single because I haven’t been able to integrate this into my relationships yet. BUT I have learned/learning how important it is to be kind to my own healing process first before trying to put myself in someone else life where I look to them to “fix” me.

   I suggest this book as a starting point… Click here

   Here is the audio version and you have a free trial if you have never used it before.. Click Here

4. You will also need to implement some Self-Soothing techniques to help when the emotions come up.. YOU will know what brings happiness to your heart and remember to do that when things get heavy, you want to make sure you are not staying STUCK in victim mentality, what happened and what you had to endure was NOT ok, but you know that now, so now you are here.. READY and WILLING to heal, so let’s meet here, not in the past.

   I like to be in nature, go to the gym, go dancing, meet with friends and be silly or talk about everything BUT what I’m going through, OR to ONLY talk about what I’m going through. Pet animals, are gifts and bring us comfort. What funny movies, stay away from things that will keep you STUCK in your head and victim mentality. I call this “FILLING your CUP”

5. COMMITMENT TO SELF and your practice of filling your cup:

   Make SMALL plans, and achieve them, small rewards will help boost your confidence, but trying to achieve something you are not capable of will lead you back to beating yourself up, so start small.

   I do 10 mins of meditation a day (sometimes I miss it) but I stay pretty consistent because it shows me I can commit to a practice and we need some sort of routine and stability after growing up not having it.

   I LOVE this 10/12 min meditation on SoundCloud because it reminds me to forgive myself, that’s SELF LOVE and we ALL need lots of that to get through this sometimes harsh world. Click here

   And if you are not on Soundcloud you can find many other good 10 min ones here Click here

6. Inner child healing will be super important to retrain your inner child how to feel safe again. After a lot of trauma, it is hard to show up as an adult for life. That’s why this work is Crucial, and to be honest a bit difficult. I am still constantly catching myself acting from a place of a child. But it is a process. Here is a great couple that teaches you all the ways to start healing this part of yourself. Click here

7. A more progressive way to heal trauma without having to do a lot of work is EMDR. I am not well versed in this but you can google it and find specialists to help facilitate this technique. There is also Somatic healing and other alternative ways to healing Trauma without having to take drugs, which obviously we all want to be free from:)

I’d love to hear your comments on all of this and please share any techniques anyone else has found useful below!:)

AND WELCOME TO THE STOP THE CYCLE COMMUNITY!! We got this, lets keep connecting with one another, and supporting the process!!

PS, if you are battling an addiction yourself, and haven’t gotten clean yet, maybe start implementing some of these healing techniques before you do it, as it will help you along the way of your recovery!!!

How did you do it? How did you build a relationship with a person in active addiction?

I get asked this question a lot. So I am going to write out what I just shared today:

For ME it’s always about finding a way IN.. how to connect as a friend, by finding out what shoes they like, or creating them a playlist, connecting over a funny TikTok video.. You have to work to find them inside.. as you might not recognize them anymore… then start asking questions, like (without judgment): “Why do you use?”

Now depending on your relationship that might be way too advanced for where you are with them and their illness. It took me a long time to get to the harder questions with my mom, and some she could never answer because they were too painful.

So try to evaluate your relationship and find the middle ground, find something you feel they will want to answer, it could be even about someone else. Such as, “Were you in love with dad” then LISTEN, you will have to build trust and the only way you will be able to do that is if you prove to them you are NOT judging them for their honesty, EVEN if it hurts, EVEN if it’s not what YOU want to hear.

You have to remember WHY you are there. Hopefully, it is because you want to understand them and you want a relationship. So keep that as your focus and show up as a friend. NOT as a child needing a parent, or a parent needing a child, JUST a friend.

You have to remember this person, might have been deeply wounded, maybe by something you have no idea about. So you need to build their trust that they will not be hurt more. EVEN though it hurts YOU, to see them like that, you are not there for that reason, that will be something you will have to deal with after on your own.

Read what helped me here

I highly recommend creating a practice of self-soothing; meditation, funny movies, walks in nature, playing with animals, being around supportive friends, reading a book, taking a bath, dancing. WHATEVER it is that brings a little comfort to you. DO that when it gets too heavy, and remember you do NOT want their demons to take you under, so it is YOUR responsibility to separate yourself from their pain. And however, long it takes you to recover, that is ok, and if it’s never, that is also ok. ONLY you will know what you CAN and CAN NOT handle, that is why BOUNDARIES will be key. Google or use #boundaries on TikTok to learn more.

Now if you want a way to understand their addiction, I will use this reference. You know the movie “lord of the rings” and you know Gollum feels about the ring.. well this is how an addict with the disease feels about their addiction in active addiction before getting help. Now REMEMBER you CANNOT make anyone chose to get help, you can’t guilt-trip them, or physically force them (well maybe, but I don’t know the legality of that one:-)

So keep returning to WHY you are there.

Now if they sense in the SLIGHTEST that you are going to take the “ring” (their addiction) away from them (including guilt trip), they may lie, steal, hurt you, etc. SOOOOOO this is VERY important. YOU NEED TO COME TO TERMS WITH THE FACT THEY MAY NEVER get better. I’m not saying that they won’t, BUT that is not going to be up to you. And you have to allow them to want to make that choice on their own and do try to find a way to express how their addiction is affecting you in a gentle way that they can understand, but since they are in the addiction they might not be able to hear it, and they may have too much guilt to be able to hear it.

So now once you’ve come to terms, I mean REALLY come to terms with that and believe me it took me SOOOOOO long to get there, I didn’t want to give up on her getting better, but eventually, I saw that pressure wasn’t helping. NOW yes, some say tough love is the answer and people have to hit rock bottom and you are ONLY enabling them if you don’t let them get there. But if for someone like my mom after YEARS of her trying to get better, and US being separated because she wasn’t I decided to try a new way. I am not god and I don’t know the outcome of people’s lives, but neither do you. It’s THEIR LIFE.

And again, what we are trying to achieve is a relationship with them, meeting them… where they are at.

If it’s too PAINFUL for you to accept that, or you just don’t want to, that is ok too. AGAIN I am not in your shoes or god. But this is how I did it:-)

I wished, oh man did I ever wish, and still to this day, I wish I knew what it was like to have a mom I could travel with, that I could have shown her my amazing life, outside of her impoverished rooms in the DTES of Vancouver. But that was not the life I was dealt with nor her, but instead, I got a mom that was deeply wounded, and incredibly giving in her own way, funny as fu*k, and just HER.

So I hope you get to just know the person you love for today, and I PRAY every moment of every day, that they will find a way from the grips of addiction and will begin to get the healing they deserve. But that is ALL we can do, PRAY, LOVE, and SHOW UP (however that might be).

Love you all, and I am SOOOOO sorry addiction has brought us together because I know the pain in your heart and I would NEVER wish it on another, but it is here to teach us something, and I HOPE that is how to unconditionally love (with boundaries).

PS. PLEASE spend the time to google and research the disease of addiction. Watch videos by Gabor Mate on youtube, EDUCATE yourself, LEARN about TRAUMA and how it affects people, and how to love and support someone with it. AND if you can find it within your heart to help others, PLEASE share your story! So many children are alone in their pain because no one wants to talk about ADDICTION, so they try their best to deal with their pain on their own, without any tools, and for most (not all)… they give up and take the path of their parent(s). WE as a COMMUNITY (which we are now. if you’ve got a shared experience of having addiction in your life). are RESPONSIBLE for these children whether they are yours or not.

AND... If you want a One on One with me book a session here