WEBVTT - Zygote Baby 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:05.880 Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. Shame 0:00:05.960 --> 0:00:09.719 is so powerful that the minute it has a little 0:00:09.720 --> 0:00:11.760 bit of the creep factor, like you give it a 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.400 little bit of room to breathe, it's it rolls over 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:16.840 you again. And it's so funny because I live my 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:20.599 life today not being ashamed of my conduct, not being 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:24.400 ashamed of how I navigate this world. Yet it lives 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:29.680 in me. This is Jane Mints. Jane is an interventionist, 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:32.840 which means that she flies all over the world trying 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:37.599 to intervene when someone an alcoholic, an addict needs a 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:40.920 serious amount of help. When you want to bring the 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:43.720 big guns in the person who can handle all of it, 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:47.680 the blood, the gore, the vomit, the denial, the life 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:49.680 and death stakes of the addict at the end of 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:54.600 the line, that's Jane. Because Jane's been there herself, right 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:58.480 in the center of that shame, that addiction. It doesn't 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:01.640 own me anymore, but it is something that I battle 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:05.240 every single day and I just and I think that, um, 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:09.880 I feel better when I'm able to help somebody that 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:15.000 is really sort of unconsciously deciding if they want to 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:19.800 live or die. And there is that moment when I'm 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:23.679 able to connect to somebody for the moment they choose 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:26.959 to live, and that's the opening. So that's the power 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:41.120 of what wounded people can do together. I'm Danny Shapiro, 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:45.040 and this is Family Secrets, the secrets that are kept 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:48.200 from us, the secrets we keep from others, and the 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:59.080 secrets we keep from ourselves. This is a story about adoption, addiction, recovery, identity, nature, nurture, 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:02.920 and well just a little organized crime, but we'll get 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:06.840 to that. And like a soft thrumming heartbeat beneath all 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:11.080 of it, shame. I've been thinking a lot about shame 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:14.639 during this first season of Family Secrets, because so many 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:18.160 of these stories either originate in shame, or cause shame, 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:23.160 or both. In Jane's case, her story begins with being adopted. 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:27.840 She's the eldest of three adopted children, brought into a wonderful, loving, 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:32.800 privileged family. So everything's good, just as it ought to be. 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:38.200 I grew up and Shaker Heights, Ohio. My father was 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:40.799 a surgeon, my mother stay at home mother. I had 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:46.960 to adopted siblings and we lad really an idyllic life. Um, 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:52.600 the rhythm of life was terrific. I had all the 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:58.200 opportunity that was afforded me in terms of excellent education, 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:03.880 great camps, very feminist you know, grow girl environment, private 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:06.560 schools and that kind of thing, lots of travel. My 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:10.040 family was incredibly social. We had lots of extended family 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:14.600 and friends, and I was really supported and cherished and 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:18.680 celebrated as a kid. But I was very lucky because 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:22.280 my life could have been the polar opposite, and I 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:26.120 knew that my whole life. So when you say your 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:28.800 life could have been the polar opposite, it's because you 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:32.160 had the knowledge that you were adopted, and so the 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:35.520 sense of luck of the draw or like being adopted 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:39.040 into one particular family that was loving and privileged as 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:42.400 opposed to another. Correct it absolutely. And I didn't at 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:46.360 that time know anything about my birth history, but I 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:49.760 knew I was lucky. And I had a relationship with 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:52.840 my father, who's passed on about five years now. Um, 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:57.520 that was extraordinary. Jane's dad was a huge personality. She 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:01.720 describes him as the mayor of everything. He was Cleveland's 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:04.560 favorite eye doctor, and Jane would tag along on his 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:07.960 medical calls to the hospital, into the emergency room, even 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:12.320 the operating room. He brought home cow eyes, I'm sorry, 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:16.440 but you you and taught her how to operate on 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:20.000 them in the family's basement. Jane's mom was also a 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:22.840 lovely human being, though Jane felt less connected to her. 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:26.680 She was a beautiful entertainer, a great cook, a classic 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:30.640 nineteen sixties stay at home mom. My mother today is 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:33.200 eighty six years old and reads three newspapers a day 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:36.720 and is glued to CNN and ms NBC and the two. 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:39.480 The thing that we have most in common today as politics, 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:42.799 which is great. But we're very, very different people. And 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:46.520 while I love and appreciate my mother, I never developed, 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.480 you know, that rapport that I had with my dad. 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:52.000 It was just a very different relationship. And still, you know, 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:55.400 deeply loving and and all that good stuff. But we're 0:04:55.440 --> 0:05:00.520 just cut from completely different class. So, in terms of 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:03.800 being adopted, were you told that you were adopted at 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:06.600 a particular age or was it part of the fabric 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:09.559 of growing up for you always? How did your parents 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:12.600 handle it? I think from the time I could comprehend, 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:15.960 my mom and dad would read me a little book 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:19.920 called The Chosen One, and that was the message from 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:21.760 the time I was a small child, is that I 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:25.560 was chosen and you know, very special because of that, 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:30.040 and so they normed out adoption. The mistake of norming 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:37.120 it out was the misunderstanding that children are blank slates. 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:39.560 So it was kind of an interesting dynamic where I 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:42.720 always felt very you know, loving and accepted and come 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:47.960 from this amazingly cool family. It wasn't until much later 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:52.400 in my life that I sort of stood in my 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:55.360 own truth and said I deserve to know. I really 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:59.800 deserve it. The book Chain Remembers is actually titled The 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:05.599 Chosen Baby. Published in the cover features a whimsical drawing 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:08.599 of a little boy climbing out of his crib, and 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:13.039 the book is described as a universally popular children's story 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:19.279 about adoption. The opening goes like this. The first baby 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:22.440 was a little boy with blue eyes and curly blonde hair. 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:25.880 He laughed and played with a rattle. The man and 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:28.920 his wife watched the baby. Then they shook their heads 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:32.080 and said, this is a beautiful child, but we know 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:35.480 it is not our baby. And they were taken to 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:39.960 see the next and they're asleep. In the crib lay 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:43.719 a lovely, rosy, fat baby boy. He opened his big 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:46.640 brown eyes and smiled. The wife picked him up and 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:49.599 sat him on her lap. The baby gurgled, and the 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:52.720 man and his wife said, this is our chosen baby. 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:55.479 We won't have to look any further. We will have 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:58.080 everything ready for him by tomorrow and would like to 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:02.240 take him home. Then. I am sure the book was 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:05.960 well intentioned and its author well meaning, and the parents 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:08.080 who read it to their children were ahead of their time, 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:10.160 those who were trying to tell the truth to their 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:15.000 kids about their adoption. And yet, in Jane's words, the 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:18.920 whole idea was to norm it out, to instill strongly 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:23.840 the sense that being chosen was all that mattered. My 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:27.280 adoption was a private adoption. And what what I think 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:31.160 did go wrong over time is that while it appeared 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:33.680 to be transparent, you know, in terms of me knowing 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:37.400 I was adopted, my parents claimed they knew nothing about 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:43.000 my adopted family, which is not true. So it took 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:48.320 me getting my grandmother really drunk and imploring her to 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:51.400 show me my original birth certificate, which had been altered. 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:58.960 My grandmother, my mother's mother, was just this little pocket person, 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:00.920 but she was all ry. I mean, she was no 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:04.400 joke at all. And um, I think that when I 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:07.560 was born, my parents gave my grandfather and my grandmother 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:10.360 my original birth certificate, and somehow I had gotten wind 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:13.720 of that at around seven years old. So I went 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:15.520 over to my grandmother's house and she used to smoke 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:19.320 Lucky Strikes cigarettes and drink scotch. So we started drinking 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:22.960 scotch and smoking Lucky Strikes cigarettes together, and I just 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:25.679 said to her, I have to know. And her whole 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:28.840 thing was, well, if your mother ever found out, I 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:30.960 would never be able to recover from that because they 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:34.840 were very, very bonded and had, you know, beautiful relationship. 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:37.960 But she sort of at that moment, there was this 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:41.440 crack and I was able to slip through and she 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:45.440 gave me my birth certificate, which then gave me the 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:50.840 actual doctor and the town that I was born. After 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:54.280 she finally finds her birth certificate. Jane hires a private detective. 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:58.680 Jane is twenty six years old. She's in retail computer sales. 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:02.000 Her career is on hire. She's a hard partying up 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:08.320 and comer. Within three days, she was able to find 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:12.079 everything out that I needed to know. And she called 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:16.640 me and she said, UM, you better sit down, and I, boy, 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:19.840 did I sit down, and she told me I found 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:22.640 her This is where she is um. She would like 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:25.600 to talk to you. She wanted me to tell you. 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:28.120 You know, she's been waiting for you your whole life. 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:30.920 And I said, okay, have her call. And of course, 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:33.400 at that time, I was drinking like a fish, and 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:35.360 I grabbed a Scotch bottle and I sat on the 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:38.240 edge of my bed and the phone rang, and she 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:42.079 said exactly those things to me. She said, I've been 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:46.520 waiting for you all my life. And and then we 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:52.120 agreed to meet. We're going to pause for a moment 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:00.240 before we get to the moment when Jane first eats 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:02.640 her birth mother. I want to know more about the 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:06.240 whole inside Jane, inside so many of us whose origins 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:09.760 have been kept from us. After all, she's had it 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:13.000 pretty good. What sends her to the private detective and 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:17.960 ultimately to her biological mother? I mean, what is that confusion? 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:22.160 What is that sense of emptiness all about? Well, it's 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:25.880 interesting when you live in such a beautiful bubble and 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:28.960 you have nothing but really good things happening to you 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:31.520 all the time. And I was successful, I was had 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:35.040 great friends, I had great family. My whole life, I 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:37.560 felt like there was a black hole in my soul 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:40.160 that was so deep and wide, and I felt like 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:43.160 I didn't deserve to feel that way, and that I 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:48.160 felt really ashamed of having these feelings and not being 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:52.280 able to really identify what that was about. And you know, 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:55.240 I think shame is is what I learned to feel 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:58.280 about myself my whole life, even though there was no 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:02.359 evidence that I should be ashamed. But I felt ashamed 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:07.320 for wanting to know more about myself and sort of 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:12.800 being acculturated. I can't really describe it, but you never 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:17.440 you always feel on the outside of life, always, and 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:21.040 then there's no evidence for why you should feel that way, 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:25.120 so that there's an incongruence. Yeah, I can't tell you 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:28.120 how much I relate to that, Okay, Yeah, I know 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:31.400 that the feeling of I don't have a right to 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:35.600 this pain. I mean, you know, look at me, look 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:39.040 where I live, Look look at this privilege, and you 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:41.360 know this environment in which really nothing has gone wrong, 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:44.840 that's right, But the feeling of something being terribly wrong, right, 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:47.920 and that being an extremely confusing thing for a kid. 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:50.800 It it really is. And you know, you and I 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:53.640 were talking a little bit earlier that adoptive kids have 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:58.640 a very high rate of addiction. And process addictions, which 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:02.320 means being addicted to anything other than a substance. And 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:06.320 my family were big cocktailers, and I can remember it 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:11.760 nine years old, clearing the cocktail glasses and then taking 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:17.319 my first drink, and that feeling of being different or 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:21.040 separate or not a part of went away. So it's 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:23.960 a classic when substance meets solution. And that was the 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:28.080 story of my life. So rather than try to seek 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:31.680 an inward journey, until I learned to do that, everything 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:35.040 was external. Everything was an external fix. And that's even 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:39.720 more disregulating because there's no you know, you're it's not 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:42.520 an authentic journey at that point, right, And ye know 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:45.880 what's going through my head is what possible tools? Would 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:48.040 you have had to know that an inward journey was 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:52.040 possible exactly? And it wasn't until I landed in treatment 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:56.559 that that I started to connect with Native American spirituality 0:12:56.600 --> 0:12:58.720 and ritual and all this kind of stuff and really 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:02.280 realized that there was a huge spiritual part of myself 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:05.400 that I never knew existed. I didn't know existed for 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:09.040 anybody else. Would you have though, like in middle school 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:12.760 in high school, would you have been able to identify this. 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:17.160 If somebody had asked you, are you good with what 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:19.679 you know about yourself? Or is that does it feel 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:22.760 like there's something more that that you're seeking that would 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:24.800 you have been able to articulate that I would have. 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:28.840 I would have, but I was never asked, and I 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:34.640 didn't look to somebody to, you know, ask me that. Well, 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:37.439 that goes back to the narrative of I was chosen. 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:41.000 I've been so blessed, right, I'm so lucky. Yeah, I 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:43.719 should just shut up and shut up and enjoy it, right, 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:48.520 But you can't if something is so it's it's cellular, 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:52.040 and it's also I'm a big YOUNGI in so the 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:56.040 collective unconscious is you know, is always so intriguing to me, 0:13:56.760 --> 0:14:00.200 and there's there's a real disconnect and when you're in 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:05.840 disharmony with the universe, you know, starting with yourself. Everything 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:08.680 we talked about running around your back hand, that's what happens, 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:11.760 is that you just end up course correcting all the time. 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:17.199 When Jane talks about running around her backhand, this is 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:19.560 a phrase that originates in her youth as a tournament 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:22.120 tennis player, and one I love so much I'm gonna 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:25.440 start using it myself. I was also a tournament tennis player, 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:28.160 though probably not as good as Jane, and I remember 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:30.920 that coaches love to say this, don't run around your 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:36.200 back hand, meaning don't compensate or overcompensate, don't be afraid 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:40.040 of your weaknesses, running around whatever your truth is, whatever 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:42.080 you know deep down is the right thing to do. 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:45.760 So you're only playing with half your game because you're 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:49.000 so worried about failing or missing your shot. Or in 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:51.960 Jane's case, if she was enough of a winner, is 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:55.640 she nailed every shot, she would continue to be the 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:59.640 lucky chosen baby. In my own mind, now that I 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:02.880 can construct some of the stuff it was, they can't 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:09.240 possibly give me back if I'm this good. So now 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:11.840 Jane is twenty six years old, and she's sitting on 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:13.520 the edge of her bed with her bottle of scotch 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:17.160 and hearing the sound of her birth mother's voice for 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:21.360 the first time in her life. When I heard her voice, 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:27.880 it's like my my cell started knitting back together. It 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:33.520 was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. So I decided, 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:36.200 you know, on that phone call with my birth mom 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:40.920 her name is Linda, to meet her and I flew 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:44.680 to Dallas the next week and I was my uniform 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:46.800 at the time probably still is today, was you know, 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:50.320 cowboy boots, jeans and a white shirt. And I walked 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:52.680 off the plane and at that time, people could meet 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:54.480 you at the gate, remember that like back in the 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:57.600 Stone ages. Uh. And there was my mother in a 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:02.920 white shirt, jeans and cowboy boots and we're doppelgangers, were 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:09.200 dead lookalikes. When you see somebody that you're a dead 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:14.240 ringer for. I mean my mannerism, the cadence of my voice, 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:16.320 the way I wore my hair, my blue eyes, my 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:23.040 whole It was the most soul shattering moment, and I 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:25.600 think sometimes you have to fall apart to put yourself 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:28.760 back together. And that was that brought the house down 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:32.400 for me. And then I started to learn to live. 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:38.120 And it was because I felt finally that that I 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:43.960 did belong somewhere. Jane's mother, Linda, Her life is complex. 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:48.960 Jane describes her as an extraordinary, very wounded person with 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:53.040 a loose grip on reality. Linda also has another child, 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:57.240 one she has raised, Jane's half brother, who has mixed 0:16:57.240 --> 0:16:59.600 feelings about the discovery that he has a sibling. He 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:03.800 had never known about On her end, she had kept 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:08.360 me a secret from my half brother and the family, 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:11.320 so she had to come clean. So we went over 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:15.120 and we met my my half brother, who was not 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:17.600 really buying into this whole thing. He'd been the golden 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:20.280 child and his family, but they had lived a very 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:24.560 challenging life, I mean, just needless to say. And so 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:27.439 I met him, I met his two little kids and 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:30.040 his wife at the time, and the three of us 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:32.840 just decided to go out and do some skeet shooting 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:36.040 and that was really great. Um. And that's the other 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:38.040 thing is, from the time I was a small child, 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:43.320 I could ride and shoot like nobody's beeswax. Skeet shooting 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:46.359 as a bonding activity doesn't seem to quite go together 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:51.360 with Jane's Shaker Heights, progressive Jewish upbringing. Yes, a liberal 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:54.919 Jewish progressive Democrat, you know. I mean we we didn't 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:57.240 shoot guns, we didn't do all that kind of stuff. 0:17:57.240 --> 0:17:59.880 But I went to these this fabulous summer camp where 0:17:59.880 --> 0:18:01.600 we did all that, and that was just such a 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:05.200 part of my d n A because that's my whole family. 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:10.760 We're all you know, outdoorsy outlaws, addicts, you know, really 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:14.480 colorful group of people. So we just blew stuff up 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:20.000 and it was sort of this cathartic cool bonding. D 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:25.400 N a d oxy ribonucleic acid. There's a mouthful for you. 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:31.639 Here's a definition the fundamental and distinctive characteristics or qualities 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:38.199 of someone or something, especially when regarded as unchangeable. What 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:41.639 is it to recognize the characteristics or qualities of yourself 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:46.920 in someone else for the very first time. I remember 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:50.240 when I first laid eyes on my biological father. The 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:52.320 first time I saw him was on a YouTube video. 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:56.400 He was giving a lecture, and what I felt watching 0:18:56.520 --> 0:19:01.439 him was a shocking sense of familiarity. His gestures, his 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:05.320 facial expressions, his very nature was like an overlay of 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:10.000 my own. The one thing about my mother, uh Linda, 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:12.800 was that she was dynamic. I mean, there was just 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:15.159 something She would just weave a spell around you. Her 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:19.080 charisma was extraordinary, and as she started to tell me 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:21.800 a little bit about her life, she started to answer 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:26.160 a lot of questions about how I operated. Because I'm 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:30.320 sort of an outlaw at heart, but I've been refined 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:34.360 and I've been educated, and I have a very distinct 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:38.119 moral compass and sort of code of conduct. But my mother, 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:44.000 who polished herself, up ended up leaving home at fifteen 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:47.040 or sixteen years old, found her way into the St. 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:51.320 Louis Mob and became a very high ranking U copo. 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:55.840 Just hold on a second here. In all the fantasies 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:58.639 that adopted children have about who their birth mother might be, 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:03.960 you know, famous actress, foreign royalty, I wonder if high 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:07.440 ranking capo in the St. Louis Mob has ever made 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:14.240 the list. Jane's mother with a mobster. She drove getaway cars, 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:17.880 She used her beauty to lure men into rooms where bad, 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:21.600 bad things happened. She fell in love with Kurt Flood, 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:24.760 a Hall of Fame baseball player, and even tried to 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:27.960 run away with him. Jane describes Linda as a black 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:33.320 widow type, dark and dangerous in a glamorous package. So 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:36.440 many of the stories that she told me about that 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:39.200 part of her life, which were really the glory days 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:42.240 of her life, started to help me make sense of 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:46.639 the mobster and me. And it was just an unbelievable like, 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:51.000 oh my god, now I get it, I get why 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:53.760 I think this way, I get so. It was just 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:57.359 a kind of a a chicken and egg thing. You know, 0:20:57.440 --> 0:21:00.480 when you can't figure out why you're you operate this 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:03.480 like as a little Jewish girl from Shaker Heights. There 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:05.480 would be no reason for me to be as street 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:08.399 smart as I am. There would be no reason for 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:10.840 me to be able to read a room as quickly 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:16.200 as I can, um no frame of reference for any 0:21:16.240 --> 0:21:18.480 of this stuff, and very different than my other siblings 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:23.000 and even my parents. The nature is so strong, you know. 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:26.240 The nurture is important, but what I learned was over 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:31.840 my lifetime was to appreciate so much the cellular knowledge 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:37.280 that is transferred from one generation to another, which it 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:42.000 could be argued, is why it's so important, why the 0:21:42.160 --> 0:21:45.640 child is not a blank slate. Oh my gosh, it's 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:51.360 so true. And without somebody being able to claim their 0:21:51.440 --> 0:21:57.399 history and to understand their history, most people feel fraudulent 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:03.280 and out of congruence. It's a terrible way to live. 0:22:03.560 --> 0:22:08.359 And that school of thinking. School of thought has destroyed 0:22:08.440 --> 0:22:13.880 so many people. And today, you know, after my own 0:22:13.960 --> 0:22:19.160 journey of my own addiction, my job every single day 0:22:19.400 --> 0:22:22.000 is to be rigorously honest with myself and other people. 0:22:22.960 --> 0:22:26.960 And telling the truth is a hard thing to do, 0:22:27.960 --> 0:22:31.000 and reconciling the truth is a hard thing to do. 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:34.480 So Jane meets her birth mom and the rest of 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:38.480 her birth family and learns so much about herself that 0:22:38.480 --> 0:22:42.320 black hole, that yawning empty space inside her is all 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:45.600 filled up. She no longer feels the need to drink. 0:22:46.600 --> 0:22:52.399 Cue the violence. In the Hollywood version of Jane's life, 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:56.120 that's what would happen right the moment she meets her mother, 0:22:56.320 --> 0:23:00.360 her biological mother, she would have everything she needs, her 0:23:00.440 --> 0:23:03.920 questions all would be answered, and her addiction, well, that 0:23:03.920 --> 0:23:07.960 would just go away. But life is not a Hollywood movie. 0:23:08.720 --> 0:23:11.000 Jane is in her mid twenties when she meets Linda, 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:13.960 and it takes her until the age of forty to 0:23:14.040 --> 0:23:18.760 get sober. Because I was carrying a secret, and that 0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:22.760 destroyed me, ultimately destroyed me, and I ended up working 0:23:23.280 --> 0:23:27.280 my whole life around protecting that secret of having met her, 0:23:27.920 --> 0:23:31.280 establishing a relationship with her, you know, being forced to 0:23:31.320 --> 0:23:35.439 live a double life because I was immediately welcomed in 0:23:36.080 --> 0:23:41.480 to my birth family, all the while remaining staunchly a 0:23:41.480 --> 0:23:46.439 part of my adoptive family. And I should have felt 0:23:46.600 --> 0:23:48.840 like I was complete, but I felt like I had 0:23:48.880 --> 0:23:52.840 betrayed that I was, had been treacherous and deceitful, that 0:23:52.920 --> 0:23:56.800 if my family ever really found out that I had 0:23:56.840 --> 0:24:00.680 done this, that I would be disowned, that the relationships 0:24:00.680 --> 0:24:04.360 would be forever fractured. And that's actually pretty much what happened. 0:24:04.960 --> 0:24:09.520 I had to end up telling my father, my beloved father, 0:24:10.240 --> 0:24:12.480 because my brother was coming to town. My half brother 0:24:12.560 --> 0:24:15.359 was coming to town to visit me, and I just 0:24:15.560 --> 0:24:18.399 it's such a close knit community that we look so 0:24:18.480 --> 0:24:20.480 much alike my birth mother and looks at that. I 0:24:20.560 --> 0:24:22.879 knew that the minute he came to town, it was 0:24:23.040 --> 0:24:25.120 the cat was out of the bag. So I ended 0:24:25.200 --> 0:24:27.680 up telling my dad about this. Course he was shattered, 0:24:27.800 --> 0:24:31.280 and he went and told my mother about this, and 0:24:31.359 --> 0:24:33.840 I don't know that she's ever recovered. And that was 0:24:33.880 --> 0:24:37.840 the last anybody ever spoke of it. So that's another wound, right. 0:24:38.800 --> 0:24:40.679 But it strikes me that you didn't have to have 0:24:40.760 --> 0:24:43.560 your half brother come to town, so you must have 0:24:43.680 --> 0:24:46.680 on some level needed to bring this to a boil, 0:24:47.080 --> 0:24:50.360 no question about it. And you know, some of that's 0:24:50.440 --> 0:24:53.760 really a blur, and I think instinct kicks in. I 0:24:53.800 --> 0:24:57.399 wanted my children to meet him, um, I wanted my 0:24:57.680 --> 0:25:01.560 then husband to meet him, and I needed some support. 0:25:01.760 --> 0:25:06.280 I needed people to share this burden with me, which 0:25:07.200 --> 0:25:09.239 it's a weird word to use, but that's what it was. 0:25:10.920 --> 0:25:12.840 We're going to take a quick break. We'll be back 0:25:12.840 --> 0:25:25.480 in a moment. This idea of being burdened feels like 0:25:25.520 --> 0:25:29.959 an important one. Whenever a family secrets, who carries that burden? 0:25:30.320 --> 0:25:33.879 And why does the burden shift from one family member 0:25:33.880 --> 0:25:37.840 to another? Does the burden exist if the secret manages 0:25:37.880 --> 0:25:41.480