Category: adoption

I’ll Give You An Out

I finally watched Grey’s Anatomy this week, my bestie called me and told me she needed to discuss the episode like usual and I needed to hurry up. Being the good procrastinator that I am, I waited a whole extra day.

I have never checked into a treatment center or psychiatric facility however the mix of emotions watching Jo walk into hit me hard. The hardest part was her giving Alex an “out”.

Like most adoptees, we have “outs”, whether we realize it or not, we always seem to have an escape route. Whether it is a relationship or friendship, we always, whether conscious or not, have an “out”. We have create a way to “leave” or “abandon” the situation without our pride or feelings being hurt, or at the very least, rationalization on why we have left said relationship or friendship.

Looking back through my life, I can see my “outs” or the “outs” that I have given or created for people, just like Jo. She tells Alex that she knows of his history, that he seems to always date “crazies” and that since they never officially filed a marriage license, that was his out. He doesn’t answer her. Some part of me knew why she did it, knew why she was pushing him away, why she gave him that out.

At an adoptee’s core whether consciously or unconsciously we are used to people leaving us and on some level we expect those around us to leave. We create these “outs” to “spare our feelings” to let people leave because that’s “what they do” but what if we let them leave or force them to leave because we devalue ourselves and don’t believe that we are worthy enough for love.

That’s a heavy statement. We have decided for ourselves that we are not worth someone else’s love. We have decided for them that we are not worthy of their love. I used to play it off, that I always had an exit plan “just in case” was it really just in case or was it because I had already decided that I was not worthy enough for what someone was offering me? That on some level I was in reality planning for my own self sabotage and self fulfilling prophecy. My creating the “out” or the “exit plan” it is only a matter of time before history repeats itself again and we spiral down only to feel miserable because we have created our own worse nightmare.

Knowing all of this, what does it all mean? Where do we go from here? Are we even capable to “stop” giving “outs” to people?

Personally I can tell you that I am fully aware that I self sabotage and I plan for an “out”. Sometimes I can’t tell if I’m doing it to be smart or if I’m doing it out of habit. At the very least I’m glad I’m aware of it. I know the behavior exists, I know the consequences and sometimes I honestly don’t know anything different. Sometimes the compulsion is so great that I can’t even reason myself out of it or even stop the impulse. Being aware of it helps, talking about it helps. I have had plenty of conversations with other adoptees and they just understand. They get it, they know the similar behaviors and feelings and sometimes the best thing I do, is just talk about it with them and work through it. Maybe one day we can start addressing it head on and a better solution, but until then, talking with professionals and talking with other adoptees is the best that I have found.

Twirl, Baby Girl

The day finally came, I’m just sitting at my computer working on a blog and my daughter walks into my bedroom. She has a pool cover-up on and she begins telling me that she prefers skirts “like this”, making her skirt more fitted. At first I didn’t think anything of it, until I asked her why. Like a typical child in elementary school she just casually tells me that she doesn’t want people making fun of her for twirling her dress.

I had a knee jerk reaction, and reflecting back I was probably more stern than I needed to be, but the adoptee inside took over. I remember those days, I remember never wanting to wear a skirt again and how much someone else’s opinion of me mattered more than my own. I knew that if I wasn’t adamant about this now, I know that I would regret it later.

I pulled her close, looked her in the eyes, and I told her that if she wanted to twirl in her dress, to do it. I reminded her than true friends are not going to make her feel bad about herself and that other people’s opinions didn’t matter. She nodded of course, I knew she wasn’t going to get it and that it would not be the first time I was going to have this conversation with her.

The adopee inside me was screaming to try and make her understand, that she doesn’t have to go around people pleasing others and turning herself into someone she isn’t. I didn’t want her to start sacrificing even the simplest of pleasures like twirling in a skirt just because someone else didn’t like it. I told her that it was okay, that there wasn’t anything wrong with what she was doing and that I even loved to twirl in a skirt, because seriously, what woman doesn’t? You’ve done it too, the best are when the skirts have a little bit of tulle under them, those twirl the best.

Hopefully I won this battle but I know that this is going to be an uphill battle for the both of us. With the adoptee inside me screaming to ensure she doesn’t lose herself in the crowd of other, that it’s okay to be noticed and seen. I know the war with going unseen, to prefer to be unseen is coming, I see it in her as much if not more than I do myself. Rest assured, I’m going to do everything that I can to let her know that it’s okay to be seen, to be who she is and to twirl in every single dress she wears.

Adoption Trauma…is it a Thing?

If you follow any part of the adoption triad organizations on social media there has been a lot of discussion regarding adoption trauma. Whatever your stance is on the issue, I can tell you first hand, that regardless of when a child is adopted, there is some trauma that occurred. There have been studies that have been shown even while in utero, “the human fetus is capable of auditory processing and in fact, is capable of processing rejection in utero.” 1 Once those babies are born and are removed from their biological mother, that newborn is unable to process the loss of their biological mother. There are other studies which state that our response to trauma is coded into our cells, that even as young children and even adults, our response to certain triggers is involuntary, we react by instinct. Sometimes we, as adoptees are unable to explain our behavior, if we recognize it at all. How can we recognize something that we aren’t even aware of? There are also studies that show that when a newborn or infant monkey was cared for in consistent and inconsistent intervals which concluded that those monkeys which were cared for inconsistently showed a higher rate of insecurity, lower social standing, anxiety and depression among other things. This study also mentioned that these monkeys who received inconsistent care were unaware and their reactions and stress were stored within their lympathic system, that with each situation of rejection or abandonment, it would bring the person back to the initial trauma and our body would begin to react on instinct, as it did during that first initial trauma. For us, that pain is real, each rejection we faced throughout our lives felt as if we were re-living that first instance of trauma over and over again.

The first time that I came across this information was 3-4 years ago. I was working through an abandonment workbook. The concept it was explaining was that in our limbic system we store our first emotional memories which is the foundation of how we eventually react to certain stimuli. The workbook continued to state that when we would experience rejection or abandonment or loss, our emotional response would revert back to the our “first” instance of that same emotion and we would emotionally respond based on our limbic system. We have already been “pre-wired” in the way that we respond. That we involuntary emotionally feel the way we did that first initial loss. Isn’t that amazing? This theory means that each instance of loss, we emotionally go back to that first instance and emotionally “relive” those emotions over and over.

This blew my mind. I couldn’t believe first, that our body was that incredible that we have the capability to store those type of memories, as I reflected back through the workbook it made a lot more sense as I look at instances of loss in my life. That being said, I believe adoption trauma is real, I believe that no matter the age or situation of the child, it is still “traumatic” to separate  them from a biological caregiver. Does this change my opinion on adoption? No, and even though I am an advocate for family preservation, I am aware that everything may not be so cut and dry, that there is some gray area.

I know that there are those that disagree with me, that believe family preservation is the only way, but I disagree, I don’t believe everything is black and white, there is some gray and this is one of those things that I believe there are some situations which adoption may be the best course of action.

 

Parenting as an Adoptee

Last month, I was supposed to speak at IKAA, an international Korean Adopteee convention. At first I was very excited to share my story, to speak on how parenting as on adoptee has impacted me, but the more I thought about the topic and the more and more anxious I became. I ended up not speaking, not because I didn’t feel that my story wasn’t relevant or because there was not interest but because I was not emotionally prepared to go into the depths of how parenting has brought so many adoptee feelings to the surface and how sometimes it’s a struggle to tell my story and not share the story of my daughter.

I see things that both of my children do, their actions, their mannerisms and their feelings and sometimes their feelings or behavior shake me to the core. I can see why one will do a certain type of behavior or make a certain comment and I am emotionally rushed back to a similar time when I was little. I am able to have more insight into the “whys” behind the behavior and be able to address it. It doesn’t it easier, sometimes it forces me to address some things from my life that I thought had already been addressed or I had forgotten about. It challenges me to look at behavior differently, to parent differently and to continue to grow.

Without my children, I would not be the person I am today. My life would be completely different and I truly don’t believe I would have addressed some of the things from my life had I not had either of my children. They will never know how much I have learned from them and I am so grateful for them.

Summertime

I know I have been MIA a little, but there are a few things in the works that I’m very excited to share. As some of you know, this summer I will be traveling back to Korea for the International Korean Adoptee Association Gathering, also known as IKAA. It’s a conference for Korean adoptees and their families. I will be speaking in one of the conference sessions about parenting as an adoptee. I have not been to this conference before and am very excited to meet so many other adoptees and see some friends as well. Truthfully, I am a little nervous because I am not a big fan of public speaking, never have been, so I guess I’ve got to start practicing and coming up with my outline.

It has been a while since I have updated you on my biological father, appa search. There really isn’t any new information, he has been contacted and has a similar story to the one on my Korean adoption papers. For a match to be confirmed, there will need to be a DNA test and from there it will be up to him whether or he wants to connect or not. For now, my emotions have calmed down a lot. I haven’t been as anxious as I have been and although I have so many unanswered questions, I know that whatever is supposed to happen will and me worrying about it won’t make it any better. For now, I am just focusing on my trip and my session preparations.

This weekend I will also be traveling to Atlanta to be interviewed by a fellow Korean adoptee for her podcast. Once the podcast is released, I will be sure to attach a link. She already mentioned that she will be taking the summer off and my episode will be released in the fall.

If there is any new information on my birth father search or the podcast episode, I will be sure to update everyone.

 

-J

How to Support a Spiraling Adoptee

I know that I have been posting a lot about my thoughts and reactions to episodes of Grey’s Anatomy…sorry but this one is inspired by that too. As Jo Karv’s story continues to progress, I have been very interested to see how her relationship with Alex is going to be. For those that don’t watch the show, Alex started out as an asshole, I hated him. His character was snarky, mean and a gave people chlamydia. However as the seasons progress we start to notice why Alex is as angry as he is and why his world view is different. If you don’t watch the show Alex comes from a home where he basically raised his siblings. His dad had walked out and his mother had untreated mental illness. Alex was always the caretaker. Throughout this series you start to notice that he typically chooses women who need care taking.

Alex has always been able to “take care of things” when people in his life fall apart, he is there to pick them back up, put them  back together and get them on their feet again while losing little pieces of himself along the way. This episode, Jo continues to push Alex away, she is hyper sensitive to things that are going on in the hospital and Alex continues to try and support her.

Towards the end of the show, Alex is in the chief’s office and he starts yelling “I don’t know what’s wrong. I can’t ask what’s wrong. I don’t know how to fix it.” He is so upset that he has been pushed out of  everything happening with Jo. He doesn’t know what is all going on through her mind and he doesn’t even know how he can help her.

For those that have interacted with adoptees, you may have figured out that we carry a lot of baggage with us, some have A LOT more suitcases than others but either way we have suitcases nonetheless. Next I bet you’re wondering if we ever completely unpack our suitcases and find some kind of balance or “normalcy”. I’m not sure. I haven’t gone through my entire life yet. I’ll let you know when I get there.

Since I have started on this journey, I have really relied on the friendships I have made throughout the KAD community. We know the issues we all struggle with and sometimes we even hear more baggage then we ever thought were possible for another human, let alone an adoptee to carry. Whether EVERY SINGLE adoptee wants to admit it or not, we ALL trauma, even if it is something we have never addressed or come to admit but it is ALWAYS there. There have been numerous studies that show no matter the age of a child, even from infancy separation from the bio mother changes the way that child develops. Numerous studies have shown that this separation causes a lack of production with a neurotransmitter of flight or fight and it has been linked to anxiety as well as depression.

On top of that add in some abandonment issues and you’ve got the work cut out for you. For those adoptees that are aware of all of this, we know it’s a lot, we know there is a lot of work to be done to handle all of our issues and maintain normalcy in our relationships. We don’t need to be told, we already are aware. We know we have issues. Do we always want to talk about them? No, especially since not everyone is able to handle the complexity of our issues.

How do you support us then if we don’t want to discuss with you? First, give us our space. Throughout the journey of finding my birth family, I have gone through a ton of emotions. I have been at highest high and I have been at some pretty low lows. To try and describe it even now is difficult to put into words. As I’ve been on this journey I have reached out to other KADs, specifically ones that have already gone through the search and have either reunited or have found their birth parents but the parents do not want any contact. For lack of a better excuse, it’s just easier. These people just know what you’re feeling. You don’t have to explain what’s going on in your head, they just get it.

Sometimes I want to talk to other people about it, some of my closest friends that I have known for decades but there isn’t that level of empathy. They can listen and hear us but sometimes that isn’t enough. Sometimes I need someone else to understand what emotions I’m feeling to reassure me that I’m not alone, that these feelings are as normal as possible and I am not driving myself crazy. Please, if an adoptee you love is spiraling and doesn’t want to talk to you, give us our space. Most of us will talk when ready.

Second, know our triggers. Whether or not we are aware of them, we’ve got them. I’ve slowly been trying to identify mine. When you add in the abandonment piece to the initial trauma add in a few more triggers. For me personally, if you start to pull away from me, I’m done and I can tell you exactly what I start doing. I pull away from you and withdraw emotionally. I go into self protection mode because the story in my head is that you are obviously going to leave if you are pulling away from me. Most likely after that I self sabotage and make sure you leave…and there are many different ways that I have done this over the years.

For adoptees FOMO or fear of missing out is all too real. We feel as if we are constantly missing out on something, if someone doesn’t include us, we jump to fear or assume that person is no longer interested in being friends with us. It sounds so stupid when I type it out but it’s a very real and true thing. Because of our trauma, because of the way our adoptee brains are wired, we immediately react (flight or fight) when we are triggered the way we always have, our brains respond sometimes without us knowing why, it almost goes into auto-pilot. Sometimes we are able to control it and sometimes it gets the best of us.

The ways that you can support us is just to be there. Give us some reassurance that everything is okay and that you are there for us. Personally, I know that when there is conflict in any of my relationships, friendly or romantic, I need that reassurance that even though something isn’t good right now that it doesn’t mean I am any less important or cared about by them, a little goes a long way.

I’m sure there are thousands of ways adoptees need support. These are just a few of the things that I need, things that I have come to identify. If you think of anymore leave a comment.

 

Always,

J

Thoughts on Jo Wilson on Greys Anatomy

For those of you who have followed this season of Grey’s Anatomy you have slowly follow Jo’s story. From her very rough start of living out of her car, her extremely abusive ex-husband, to now where she is happily married, about to start a family and starting her birth family search. I wasn’t sure if Shonda would ever give us more of a backstory about her but thankfully this season we start to see Jo’s story and specifically her adoption journey unfold as she and Alex discuss starting their own family.

*SPOILER ALERT*

This past episode we got to see Jo after what seemed like a while to process the brief interaction between her and her biological mother. Over the past couple of episodes we have seen her withdraw from Alex and the rest of her friends, she hasn’t been work, drinks more than we typically see her drink and appears jilted, angry, numb and depressed. When she emerges from her bed and starts back working she immerses herself at work, continues to push Alex away and finally is confronted that she was drinking while in the lab.

The end of the show is an argument between Alex and Jo when he confronts her about her going to work drunk and she continues to push him away. By the end of the show, I could relate to Jo on so many different levels.

I have read a few comments from other viewers about how “Jo is the worst” and she is “always in so much pain…Alex doesn’t need her…she is so petty”. The review was hard to read because Jo is incredibly relatable to many adoptees. For those that have followed my adoption journey and now with the potential of reuniting with birth family, I can understand 100% why she withdrew from loved ones. I don’t agree with her showing up drunk on the job but the degree of her heightened emotions could cause people to do irrational things.

I’m sure the million dollar question is why did Jo withdraw and didn’t explain herself to Alex. As an adoptee, who has spoken with other adoptees, specifically Korean adoptees, some who have reunited with family, some where the birth family continues to deny their existence, some who are in process of searching and other who will never know their birth family and on some level we all relate. We all have this collective experience that is unique to us that we understand all the different emotions we experience as we walk along this journey.

There are times, I admit that I prefer to speak to specific KAD friends because of where they are in their birth family search, or because of other similar circumstances we have. I do not mean to withdraw myself from my other friends and loved ones, however adoption and the trauma surrounding adoption is something that we all KADs just understand. Some of these women that I have become close friends with I have only met a handful of times but on some level we just all “click”. We understand the struggles all of us have experienced and empathize in our current struggles of having our feet stand in two different worlds.

I am by no means excusing Jo’s drinking behavior or showing up to work drunk. What I am saying is that her portrayal of what adoptees go through during the birth family search is something ALL adoptive parents should see. Her story shows the darker side of adoption. As I have mentioned before, not all adoptions are happy endings, some have a very dark side. I am extremely grateful that Shonda is shedding light on adoptees, our journey, our pain, our struggles and has given us a realistic portrayal of us on prime time.

Monday evening, I finally got the courage to call the organization I have been working with. Unfortunately, the person who answered did not speak very good English so I will have to call back later this week. I am nervous and extremely anxious. I don’t speak Korean and having to explain where I am at in my search is nerve-wracking enough.  For now one day at a time, one step at a time.

 

-J

Korean Enough

Transracial adoption, a term that I had not used or heard of until several months ago. This term however describes me and my experience as an adoptee. If you are unfamiliar with this term “transracial” means that you identify as a different race other than your birth ethnicity.  For the most part KADs were adopted by white parents, so culturally we were raised white. I am not stating that this a bad thing by any means but many of us lost our ethnic identities, at times I know for myself that I had a difficult time accepting my Korean features.

I tried to diminish the fact that I did not look like my white friends  or even that I was a person of color. This especially was true when I started wearing make up. I can still remember in middle school reading the instructions that said where to put the different shades of eye shadow.  I laugh now but I cannot tell you how long it took me to figure out that I didn’t have a crease in my eyelid. For a split second I thought I had gotten some foreign makeup that didn’t understand that I was like everyone else.

In my attempts to find that “crease” in my eyelid my make up for awhile looked terrible. I had to figure out on my own how to do my own eye shadow because of my eyes. The attempts at having my make up done by friends or in a department store were out of the question. Most of the time I looked worse after someone else attempted my make up.

Within the last couple of years, I have noticed a shift. The more I started to look into Korea and after my first trip to visit there, the more I wanted to be able to exist in this world.It started slowly, I began to listen to k-pop and eventually started watching Korean dramas and I was officially hooked.

I started noticing that I exist in two different worlds which seem miles apart. It wasn’t until recently when the two worlds started to merge, how different they are and how to exist in both of them is a challenge. There are days where I am extremely frustrated that I can’t speak Korean or struggle with the fact that I’m “not Korean enough”. It constantly feels like that I have something to prove, even if it is only to myself.

Crossing over into Korean culture seems to present more of a challenge. Overall most KADs do not speak Korean and are unfamiliar with the culture this bridge is a little harder to cross. There are so many different things to “be Korean” and even then they can tell we were not raised there. From our mannerisms, clothes, hair, make up and for a lot of us, our inability to speak Korean most KADs could easily be picked out of a crowd of Koreans by Koreans.

There are some Koreans that are envious of us KADs because we can speak English like a native and can blend into American society without a second thought. I guess it’s funny to think about. There are so many traits that we as KADs seem to lack and yet we are envied by the very culture that we pine to be a part of.

What if we reframed the narrative? What if instead of stating that we exist in two different worlds, as transracial adoptees we accept the fact that we have become cultural “chameleons”. Meaning that we have the ability to move between different cultures, whether we are seen as “white” or people of color, we have the advantage to exist in these two vastly different worlds. Instead of focusing on what we “lack” we instead remember that there are two cultures where we can exist. We tend to focus so much on what we are lacking that we forget to acknowledge our advantages to existing in these different worlds.

While also changing the narrative and reclaiming our identities as adoptees, what if we also acknowledge our capability to be these chameleons and celebrate how unique it really is.

 

The Adoption Narrative

I can’t for the life of my find the right words. I’m overwhelmed, discouraged and disgusted. The adoption industry as a whole has turned human trafficking legal and turned children into one of the most profitable commodities. Like many other KADs, I know that the money that was paid for my adoption didn’t go to assist family supportive programs, or any other type of social service, instead it went to help rebuilding South Korea after the Korean war. To be frank, we were the nation’s hottest commodity and around 20 thousand or more per child, you can imagine the amount the country made on our behalf. Without thought of the future, Korea went as far as to try and erase our history and our past with the hope that we would never venture away from our newly found country and attempt to retrace our roots. Korea was wrong. Every month, every day, every summer KADs fly from all over the world to try and find their roots, to search for lost family members and put together pieces of a puzzle that never quite fit. We go back trying to be part of a culture that wanted us to move ahead and never look back, a culture that at times even rejects us now. We aren’t Korean by their standards and yet we try to fit into their world that we were never a part of or have forgotten. We can feel the stares when we are unable to speak Korean or when we do not know the social norms and customs. We are fully aware that we exist in two different worlds with one foot in each…and yet people still pay thousands of money each year to adopt a child from another country without knowing the impact it will have on the child.

We, as adoptees know all too well the affects that have haunted us. We are plagued daily with our own sense of abandonment, even with something as trivial as someone forgetting to call us back. We feel that sting each time. We know that eventually there will be questions that are unable to be answered or things we cannot explain. There will be things we may remember but do not know anything more than that. We will have to be reminded each time of our adoption when we go to the doctor and are asked about our family’s medical history. Each time in school we are reminded when a genetics project is assigned. We feel all those pains and those never really go away. We feel each impact that someone else made on our behalf as an infant or young child, taking us from a country we were born into and moving most of us half way across the world.

I have been fortunate enough to be on both sides of the equation. My daughter is adopted and I know that she will have questions. I know exactly what kinds of questions she is going to ask and the types of things she is going to feel. Even though she was adopted through foster care and our situations are not the same, I know there are some things I will be able help her through.

Now comes the uncomfortable part, the part where I can imagine that by all of these comments that I am somehow ungrateful that I was adopted or unappreciative of the life I was given. You’d be wrong if you think that, but I know that won’t stop you. You know who you are and your opinion of me will never change. I am not ungrateful in any way, shape or form, nor am I upset, bitter or even resentful that I was adopted. What I am saying is that adoptive parents don’t always know the impact that adoption has or will have. Even as babies, we are not clean slates. There have been numerous studies that show babies are able to identify their biological mother after they are born. Ripping them from that is traumatic whether you are able to admit it or not, there are plenty of studies that will confirm that it is traumatic for an infant to be separated from its mother.

The adoption narrative needs to change, how it needs to change isn’t something that I’ve been able to find a solution for yet. I know that there are millions of adoptee voices out there each with their own opinion on adoption and each with their own experience and story and they need to be heard. We are the experts. We are willing to sit down and have a conversation on what an adoptee means to us and how it has impacted who we are. The conversation only happens when people, mostly people who want to adopt and those who perpetuate the adoption commodity are willing to listen.

Shonda Hit a Home Run

If you haven’t watched this past Thursday’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy, I suggest you pause, watch it and then come back to this post. *Spoiler alert*

It wasn’t sure what to expect. As a habitual watcher of the show, I wasn’t sure where the story line, specifically of Jo and the search for her biological family was going to go. The previous episode eluded to the fact that she had found her birth mother and was planning on making a visit.

At first I was really anxious to watch this show. I have watch a couple of shows by Shonda Rhimes and I was a little concerned that it may be a unrealistic. However knowing Shonda and following Grey’s Anatomy for years, I should have known better.

As an adoptee, I have played reuniting with my bio family numerous times. I have played the interaction over and over a thousand different ways. Somehow, Shonda portrayed it to where it hit me in all of the feels. Jo was able to express her expectations and her assumptions of the situation her bio mom was in. This is something that I can relate too. I have my own thoughts on the situation that came about that warranted my adoption. Whether this story that I have fabricated is true or not, I have yet to figure out. However during the interaction, you start to notice that Jo was completely wrong about her bio mom. The narrative the she thought was the reality was nothing like the truth. It was it the adoption trauma of being abandon began all over as she learned that her bio mother had actually been sexually assaulted and didn’t work three different diner jobs to support herself.

In fact, Jo’s bio mom had more children, had gotten married and made a life for herself, something that Jo didn’t really think was possible, or something that had happen. Even now after hearing the reunification stories of different KADs (Korean adoptees), I still believe the narrative I have created in my head.

The episode starts out with an emotionally charged scene. If you have followed the show at all, you know that Jo was previously in an extremely abuse husband and was able to get out. However that doesn’t change the trauma that Jo previously endured, or the trauma from moving from foster home to foster home and eventually living in her car because that was safer.

The hallway scene is what got me. Even now just typing about it hits me right in the gut. The woman that Jo ends up helping throughout the episode had been sexually assaulted. This woman had NOT been wearing provocative clothing or had too much to drink. This woman had made up a story that many others have done in her position. They lied to cover up their embarrassment, their shame and the sheer fear that no one would believe them or that her outfit, her drinking or even her words would come into question.

Before the victim or patient gets surgery, she is clinging to Jo’s hand stating that she doesn’t want to close her eyes, that she doesn’t want to see the man’s face that assaulted her. Obviously this patient needs surgery, Jo and Teddy, I am not sure whom, was able to come up with the perfect solution. First you see that Dr. Webber is trying to get through and walk into the hallway. He is stopped by I believe DeLuca stating that he can’t walk through the doors and that for whatever reason, for now he cannot pass. As the patient is walked down the hallway, it is literally filled with women starting on both sides, smiling. In a brief shot you notice that Meredith has joined them and she isn’t sure but obviously comes to join the women in the hallway. Words cannot express how moving this way. It brought me to tears.

I do not claim to be an expert in trauma, sexual assault or abuse. I can only write to my experiences. During my years in college, I had too much to drink and a “friend” had decided that I was “sober” enough for consent, which I was not. Had I had the support of other women by my side, maybe my situation would have been different.

Shonda, thank you for not sugar coating sexual assault, trauma, adoption, biological family reunions, and some of the other themes that Grey’s Anatomy has addressed. It was very refreshing to know that there are women out there supporting other women and SHOWING the world what the reality it.

 

**Fathers, uncles and male role models** Take a GOOD listen and lesson from the conversation Ben has with Tuck. Women and girls can change our mind, and quite frequently we do. Once we do, it’s time out, game over. END. OF. DISCUSSION. Let their conversation be a lesson to you all.