Spent some time with a dear old friend tonight. It felt so good yet bittersweet to play again.
I grew up playing piano & violin, starting each at 3 yrs. and 6 yrs. old respectively. They were a huge part of my life; some of my favorite childhood memories involved some form of music. I grew to achieve success with the likelihood of a music scholarship at my fingertips following high school but I struggled so much internally that I abandoned both instruments for quite sometime. Needless to say, it was disappointing for those who really believed in me.
Somehow, I didn’t feel worthy of any of it.
I continued piano (what I’ve always considered my main instrument) at some point, but never picked my violin up again until years later. It hurt to even look at it so I hid it away.
When I think back on my senior year of high school — the difficult challenges I went through, the emails between teachers & parents trying to help - I have so much love & compassion for myself as a young teen, reflecting on how lost and confused I was; how much grief I had absolutely no idea I was carrying around with me; how angry I felt at the world...how much pain I was in.
Yet I don’t regret how it all played out, not one bit. It’s a part of my life I tend to block out sometimes (I’m sharing this part of me for the first time) but I’m embracing all of it these days - every single experience.
I don’t know what you all believe in, but I can confidently say I believe everything truly does happen for a reason. I’ve realized that part of what it really means to give back is taking our pain and finding ways to transform it into gains for everyone else. Sharing my story through several art forms has been so healing, especially this year. I hope that wherever you are on your journey, you will find what healing means for you too.♥️

"Why don't we just look up a Filipino last names database and see what comes up?"
That was the question that would lead me to my birth parents' marriage record on Ancestry.com and, ultimately, change my life.

I hadn't thought about searching in a long time. The last time I had tried, I was about 18, and the lady on the phone with the adoption agency told me it would cost me $500 for them to facilitate the search with possibly more fees if I wanted a mediator to assist with reunion. We'll call her Tina.
I didn't have $500. I was also scared about people finding out I was interested in searching - what they would think, what I would look like, how ungrateful I would seem.
How ungrateful I would feel.
There's an overwhelming guilt many adoptees carry for wanting to know who and where we came from. Not only are grief, trauma, and loss implanted deep in our psyche at separation, we grow up living under the expectation of gratitude - that of others and also our own.
Regardless of what the rest of society wants to believe, when we're talking about the psychobiological, neurological, psychological, physiological (the list goes on) affects of adoption trauma, the primal wound of relinquishment and family separation - knowing and/or not knowing these answers affects every aspect of how we relate to the world and ourselves.
And relationships are everything.

So I stepped down from the place of hope and excitement and retreated where pain, grief and loss were home and familiar. It felt safer in the moment. Searching felt too big. Maybe I wasn't meant to know. It'd probably be nearly impossible to find my birth parents after all this time anyway. They were both young, but what if something happened and they weren't alive anymore? What if they didn't even want to hear from me?
I hung up with Tina. I had no idea I'd be calling her back in another seven years.

Ready or not, this was the day.
It was the summer of 2008, ten years after my mom had taken me to the adoption agency to get my file folder that I mention in Part 1.

I was sitting in the living room of my tiny apartment with my then-boyfriend who I'd been dating for a couple of years. We'll call him Sam. I'd been cleaning because my apartment was a mess, and there it was, the folder I took out once every few months or so. I showed all the documents to Sam as if it were the first time ever (he’d seen those papers several times) yet he participated with the equal interest and curiosity.
Then I handed him the poem my birth other had written to me titled 'Never Forgotten.'
It was a closed adoption, so the last names had been whited out on all the documents for privacy, but on this particular poem, whoever was whiting stuff out left the first three letters visible. I'd seen those first three letters countless times before, never thinking anything of it other than, oh, look, they forgot to white-out those three letters. But that's when Sam said, "Why don't we just look up a Filipino last names database and see what comes up?"

What?

I had never thought about doing that before. There are a million different last names in the world, quite possibly. I wasn't sure about Filipino ones, but I knew a large number of them were Spanish, and some Filipino, depending on your family tree.
But his idea seemed worth a try. Her last name started with an 'A'.
With our laptops set up back to back on the kitchen table, we were on a mission. Searching simultaneously, to my surprise, a database came up where there were only a handful of names hers could have been!
I took a guess as to which one was hers, picking the one that felt most familiar. Somehow, I knew it would be hers.
I had both of their first names, so I signed up for a free trial on Ancestry.com.
Literally, within minutes of searching that last name, my birth parents' marriage license popped up on my screen, and my heart stopped.

I screamed. There they were. Inside of my laptop.

Those who have experienced & have recovered from emotional abuse tend to recognize the signs of it much sooner (thus, are able to place boundaries where necessary) than those the manipulator victimizes.
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​For example, it’s extremely common for spouses, family members, and/or friends to co-depend or even continue supporting the narcissist, as they don’t always recognize the subtleties in which they are being used, abused, and manipulated — to them, their behavior is ‘just their norm.’

However, it’s essential to realize that these people are SUFFERING and do so unawarely. I don’t typically like using the word ‘narcissist’ for this reason; narcissism in and of itself stretches a vast spectrum, varying from individual to individual for a variety of root reasons. It’s important to know that it’s a coping mechanism that gets developed as a result of early childhood trauma and/or environment (i.e., families with low EI, or emotional intelligence).

Healthy narcissism is necessary; unhealthy narcissism is hurtful and toxic.

It IS possible for them to get help (in fact, many are successful at getting help & healing), but it would require for them to have the capacity to realize they may have a painful, deeper issue - and, unfortunately, most who suffer from this will immediately shut down the possibility, as it would change the narrative of who they are in their own mind.

📚 Book recommendation:
‘Rethinking Narcissism’ by
Harvard Medical School psychologist & Huffington Post blogger, Dr. Craig Malkin.

I love the compassion Brené Brown delivers on just about any topic. Narcissism is complex to navigate, and requires us to exercise compassion (for ourselves & others) in order to process it thoroughly.

When we think of the word, the automatic, common response is that negativity must be associated with it, but the reality is, it’s far more than just ‘good’ or ‘bad’. You won’t get an accurate picture from reading a few articles, either.

Healthy narcissism is actually necessary for balanced, healthy mental/emotional health & self esteem.
Unhealthy narcissism, however, can develop as a result of an array of reasons: family dynamics with low e.i. (emotional intelligence); child neglect; experiencing rejection as a child; abuse/trauma, etc. - the list goes on.
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Because narcissism fluctuates, has many variabilities and is not ‘one-size-fits-all’, it’s helpful to understand the unique ways it can manifest in ourselves; evaluate if what we’re feeling towards someone or something is healthy or unhealthy (those who genuinely cannot tell the difference or are unable to self-reflect likely suffer from the narcissistic personality disorder) and what to look for when it manifests in others in a way that hurts us.
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One example of unhealthy narcissism would be trying to control the actions, opinions, or feelings of others (anyone from your child, spouse, dating partner, friend or coworker) according to how you feel they should or should not behave, versus reflecting on, being curious about, or having compassion for what they may be personally experiencing.

For adoptees relinquished at birth, the majority of us tend to lean towards the low end, thus, resorting to people-pleasing in order to avoid re-abandonment (a huge component of my therapy work over the last five years). You can imagine how being introduced to an environment where narcissism is prevalent can be extremely painful, traumatic, and even detrimental for an adopted child. Learning how to recognize the difference between healthy parent/child dynamics, relationship and/or friendship dynamics vs. unhealthy is vital in order to create boundaries where necessary and/or even go no-contact when situations are so toxic, it becomes necessary.

Perhaps what is most challenging, yet most powerfully liberating is having the ability to practice compassion for those who struggle with any illness, especially unknowingly. This quote evokes just that, is a strong reminder that true power is compassion, and always wins over judgment.