Category: author

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.

Summer Slump

My summer hasn’t started out the way that I had originally thought, however you’d think I would have learned by now that my plans never seem to go accordingly. Despite the rocky and emotional start to my summer, things seem to be turning around. I have made quite a few changes recently that have changed things for the better. I’m in a new environment during the day and have started working out again, for the first time in a long time its glad to be back in the gym.

I made a decision a few weeks ago, about returning back to Korea this summer. I don’t feel ready at all, emotionally I have been numb. At my summer began, the anxiety of going and the unanswered questions I was plagued with have been overwhelming. The trip itself to Korea seemed more daunting than anything.

Originally I was planning on meeting up some distant cousins. Thankfully they were understanding and are close enough to me now that I could take a long weekend to go visit them.

Right now Korea feels more burdensome than anything. I can’t explain why, but the thought of flying over there just depresses me more. Although contact has been made with the man who is presumed to be my birth father and his story is rather similar to mine, there has not been DNA confirmation that we are a “match”. Honestly at this point, I’m not sure that he is even willing to see if we are a match. The weight of the unknown is heavy and it has distracted me from a lot of things that I should have addressed before. Maybe it’s not anxiety, maybe it’s the fear of more rejection from this “family”, one that I don’t even have a real connection too.

Living through loss and rejection there is a fear that comes with putting your emotions out there. A fear that can stop you dead in your tracks turn your world upside down. Right now, staying state side, I am safe. I don’t have to prepare myself for most likely a less then perfect ending to my biological family search. Here I can remain in a state of fantasy where I don’t have to deal with the unpleasant emotions of more hurt and pain. I don’t have to worry about having more questions then the ones that have plagued me for years.

For now I am safe. For now I can breath just a little bit easier knowing that I haven’t crossed over that bridge yet. I am still planning on going back this year, however I still continue to procrastinate on having a definite time.

With everything going on in my life in the last couple of years, I have not had the opportunity to really get back to me. I feel as if my life has been nothing but a whirlwind the last 5-6 years. If I could hit the pause button right now and just take a moment to breath and recharge, I would.

I may be absent from posting from awhile. I am still working on the waves of emotions and pulling myself back together.

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.

Life Lessons from a Campfire

I’ve been nagged long enough. It’s been over a month since my last post and apparently, people are getting antsy for me to start writing again. Honestly, I have had a bit of a writer’s block. My lift is pretty mundane. Nothing too exciting happens and my continued adoption journey is at a bit of a stalemate for the time being. My plan is to return to Korea this year but when is still to be determined. I sent my third email today to follow up on the potential man who could be my biological father.

I suppose my thought on this “father” can be saved for another post. For now, you’re stuck with life lessons that I have learned from a campfire. Yeah, I didn’t think that was possible either.

Within the last month, I have gone camping/backpacking/hiking with my kids and their dad. Since moving to SC I’ve had the luxury of having a real fireplace in all the places I have lived. I say luxury because that didn’t happen in MN. I can’t deal with fake fireplaces, I love the smell and sound of a real fire.

Anyway, because my kids’ dad is into all the Bear Grylls survivor shows, I got stuck watching them as well. Long story short, I began learning how to start a fire from nothing but some tinder and a lighter. Okay, yes I cheat with using dryer lint but still. It’s my thing, leave it at that.

My son has taken a big interest in learning everything, seriously. From cooking, laundry (only when I make him) to reading like a champ the kid is an endless sponge. While we were camping one weekend it had rained the night before. I knew it was going to be wet and it was going to be a difficult task to start a fire but nonetheless, I was up for the challenge. Starting a fire with wet wood is not fun, in fact, it’s downright hard work. My son wanted to learn, and I wanted to be the one to teach him. We went out and along the trail that day we gathered tinder, I showed him what to gather and the types of things that we were looking at. I told him to gather twice as much as he thought he needed which still was barely enough but I took his helped and praised him along the way.

Something you should know about me…I’m competitive as hell, especially when it comes to things between his dad and me. I’ve got my son following my direction with his dad over my shoulder trying to tell me how to stack the wood. I shouldn’t have listened but I did and thankfully I didn’t listen for long.

While I was starting to get the fire started it took twice as long as I thought and easier than I made it be. Obviously, this got me thinking and I started putting things together. It made me think about life, and then I tried to explain such a profound thought to my son in which he only nodded his head and then asked to go down to the shore to play in the sand with his sister.

Here is it, my epiphany during that campfire. Life isn’t as hard as easy as we think it’s going to be. In fact, it’s quite the opposite…however we make life harder than it is. We create challenges and obstacles when none exist. We make our lives harder instead of better, easier and more fulfilling.

I was adding small tiny sticks to the fire when I had this epiphany, that we choose to make our lives harder than they really are. It’s crazy, I see people struggle every day with the most mundane complaints and it astounds me that people make their lives more complicated than they are.

After that weekend I learned a lot about myself and how I view life in general. I try to stop and think about how much of our lives is nothing more than a mist. James 4:14 “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” Our life is short. Don’t make it more difficult than you have too. Enjoy it. Every single moment. Don’t make it harder just learn to laugh and BE PRESENT.

Self Respect is NOT Selfish

I have debated weather or not to dive into the depths of this subject. If you are like me chances are that you have been called selfish on more than one occasion. Like me, from time to time you second guessed your decisions and motives wondering if you were in fact being selfish. There have been more than one instance where I have second guessed my decisions and motives.

It wasn’t until quite recently that I decided to really look into the difference between selfishness and self respect. There were some decisions that I made that appeared to be selfish in nature however that is not the case. Looking at the decision in question from several different angles led me to the conclusion that there is some part of it that was selfish in nature. I knew what consequences were bound to happen, however I continued with the decision nonetheless.

While the insults were being hurled in my direction, I decided to take a good hard look at the decision that I made. For years I have struggled with having a “us” or “we” mentality. My thoughts would always go to a collective thought verses an individual mindset, I would think about myself, my dreams and goals last and think about other people’s feelings first.

Selfless isn’t always a noble quality, by being selfless and not caring for ourselves we tend to be trampled on by people who are rightfully putting their feelings first. This has happened to me, I had always thought that setting my feelings aside and thinking about others first didn’t leave me the ability to respect myself or love myself enough to put my needs and goals first. Be doing so I was trampled on by others, I became agreeable and passive.

Once I began to love myself and see myself as an individual it was easy to start taking care of myself and putting my needs first. At first it was very weird, I was very uncomfortable because I kept second guessing myself and thought that I had become selfish. This however was not the case, the simple fact was that I had gained enough self-respect to be bold enough to chase my dreams.

While I know there will be times in my life that I will probably be selfish because like everyone else, I am not perfect, I also know that there is a difference between selfishness and self respect. It’s okay to put your own needs NOT wants first and it is okay to chase your dreams and to put your needs above the wants of others. Don’t forget that.

 

Always,

J

Feelings aren’t Facts.

The following are some phrases that I have heard throughout my life: “You should feel lucky…”, “Don’t be so sensitive…”, “You’ve got it all wrong…”, “You are the only one that feels that way…”, “You have a problem…”, “You shouldn’t let it bother you…”, “You make a big deal out of everything…”, “You take everything so personally…”. What do all these things have in common? They are all ways that we invalidate each other’s feelings. What happens when we invalidate each other? Invalidating someone else doesn’t just mean that we disagree with another but that it communicates to the person that their opinions and feelings are irrational, selfish, and wrong.

I am sure from time to time everyone has used some of these phrases, I know I am guilty of using them. Typically however when these words and/or phrases are not used when someone goes through something significant in their lives. It is in those times of emotional distress or struggles when these words can be the most hurtful. This does not mean that we cannot empathize with others but stating that someone’s feelings are incorrect is just as hurtful.

One of my favorite sayings that I have learned is that “feelings aren’t facts”. Let’s break this down. What does this mean? This means that even though we may feel a certain way that does not necessarily mean that those feelings are “correct”. Meaning that just because we feel something does not mean those feelings are facts.

For example, just because we may feel uneasy, scared, distrustful or apprehensive does not mean that we are right or wrong. Feelings are feelings, those are not facts and we should not let ourselves be fooled. What we feel is just that, feelings, those feelings do not lead us down a path to truth or fact, they just simply are. What we feel is neither good or bad, it is simply just how we are responding and what emotional response that stimulus produces. We are not understand that our feelings have overridden logic or common sense, but it is just how we are feeling based on the current circumstances.

These phrases, mentioned at the beginning of this post, are phrases in which those feelings are being invalidated. That those who are expressing those feelings are wrong or somehow incorrect. When those phrases are repeated over and over throughout someone life, it means that from an early age that person’s interpretations of and feelings about the things around them were bad and wrong. The affect that this has on someone can be devastating.

It can kill someone’s confidence and has the potential to worsens psychological disorders and emotional problems. This can cause further feelings of self-doubt, feelings of inadequacy and create people-pleasers. We begin to second guess our emotions as if they are misleading us down a forbidden path. Our senses begin to mislead us and we begin to question ourselves as well as each emotion we have. The world around us is no longer something exciting but more like an entire experience to mislead and confuse us.

I have heard these words. I can remember second guessing my feelings and trying to figure out what feelings I should be feeling.  It wasn’t until I went through therapy that I started to realize that it wasn’t normal to be second guessing my feelings. My therapist always told me, feelings aren’t facts. There are still times that I remind myself, that although I may “feel” a certain way, that does not make things into facts. It has been quite helpful over the last four years.

Remember the next time you “feel” something that just because we may feel a certain way does not necessarily mean that those are the facts. Our feelings are just that, feelings, nothing more and nothing less. Try to take an objective view of the situation or person and see if your feelings match the facts OR that the facts are different than your feelings.

 

Always,

J

 

Self Destruction in 3…2…1…

At some point in our lives we self destruct. Am I right? Maybe it’s the pressure of every day life debating whether or not you are spending too much time at work or not enough time at work. It can even be that your child’s birthday party wasn’t like the one you saw on Pintrest or their classmates. Whatever the reason, we some point we hit our breaking point, the point in which we can no longer bear the weight that has been placed upon our shoulders.

Even now, years later, I can still recall my though process prior to making an impulsive, self destructive decision whether in middle school or even into adulthood. My thoughts were always the same, I had made up my mind that whomever I was currently infatuated with, was about to leave and had lost all interest in me…even though those thoughts were based off of my own feelings and not facts. Since whomever I was with at the present moment was about to leave, I justified my behavior believing that I was only moving on and showing the world that I was not hurt on the inside…that I was as tough as I claimed to me. This was not the case, the strength I pretended to have was a facade, it was all pretend. It was the way that I had learned to protect myself after years of feeling left behind and rejected.

I have included the links to the books that have helped in my self sabotaging behavior and helped me identify my triggers while showing me tools too help become more self aware. If you have the chance, please check them out. They have been worth every penny that I have spent. The following books have given me more explanation, tools and self realization than I thought were possible. For a long time I always felt alone and out of place. It was as if my experience made me unique and stand out from the crowd. It wasn’t until decades later that I would meet others that shared in the same type of struggle, that knew the types of feelings that I had experienced.

The light bulb above my head had been turned on and once I had gotten explanation for what I was doing to hurt those I cared most about, I knew it was time to fix it. Fixing it ended up being one of the hardest things to heal from. In fact, I am still healing. I believe this healing journey will be life long. I will tell you that there are days and situations in which I end up thinking the most irrational and ridiculous thoughts but now I know those thoughts are coming and I am prepared for them. Take care of yourself.

 

J

 

The Journey from Abandonment to Healing: Revised and Updated: Surviving Through and Recovering from… by Susan Anderson 

The Abandonment Recovery Workbook: Guidance through the Five Stages of Healing from Abandonment… by Susan Anderson

Taming Your Outer Child: Overcoming Self-Sabotage and Healing from Abandonment by Susan Anderson

What I’ve Been Reading

I thought this post I would take a different take on things and include some of the books that I have been reading over the last couple of years. I have not included all of them but wanted to highlight some of the ones that really meant something to me. I have included the links to either the author website or their Amazon page. Please feel free to check them out. I will be reading them again soon.

The first book that I want to mention is “Will I Ever Be Good Enough? Healing of Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers”. This is a book that was recommended to me about two years into therapy. By this time my therapist and I had built a very good rapport and we began to dive into a lot of the issues.

Before I explain what this book is about, I want to make one thing clear. Neither my therapist NOR myself, have diagnosed any of my family members. The resources that were given to be were based upon the conversations, situations or comments that were brought up during therapy with regard to situations that I had throughout middle school and beyond.

My first initial reaction hit me straight in the chest. The main question asking us if we will ever be good enough was a hard pill to swallow. From middle school into my early adulthood, this is how I felt. I thought that no matter what I did or how I acted, I would never been good enough. I ordered the book off of Amazon and started to dive into it the first night I got it. I have to admit, there was a disclaimer from my therapist that I may not relate to everything mentioned in the book, because the topic of abuse is brought up and that is not something that I have experienced.

I was however able to identify with a lot of other emotions presented in the book. While reading through, I completed the exercises that were suggested and did my best to follow their instructions and tips. I felt better, as if someone truly understood what was going on through my head. It was such a comfort in the validation that came from hearing other people’s stories.

If you are interested in learning more, I will include the link at the bottom of this post.

The next book is one that I jumped into when I started attending my church small group. It was the only one that worked with my schedule. Each Tuesday at 6:30AM we would meet and start out our morning in prayer and discussing our current study. I joined this group in April of 2015 and it was one of the best decisions I have made. I have met some of the most amazing Godly women whom I call sister.

When I started this group, they were reading “Biblical Femininity” by Grace Church. The entire book focuses around how women are image bearers of God and the feminine qualities of God that we reflect. Women are called to be “helpers”. Mentally and spiritually, I was not in a good place when I joined the group. I was separated from my boyfriend at the time whom I had selfishly hurt in the worst way possible.

I desperately wanted answers to my brokenness, to understand what had happened. It was there in those early morning studies that I came to find the broken pieces. This book not only explains how women were created to be helpers, but also explains how we can be tempted and what happens when we succumb to those temptations. As we started to learn and read about our core temptation things started to fall into place. I started to understand my role as a woman and even more, understand why things had happened the way they did.

Since the first time I have read this book, I have read it two times since then. It seems that the more I read it the more I get out of it. It was one of those books that turned on a light bulb for me.

There are other books as well, however I am going to include those in the next blog post, because those are written by the same author and have an overall theme together. I have included the links to the two books I have mentioned today. They are worth the read. I will be posting more as I’ve got a nightstand full of books that I need to start reading.

 

 

 

Will I Ever Be Good Enough? Healing of Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers by Karly McBride, Ph.D.

Biblical Femininity by Grace Church