068 – I Don’t Feel Lost, I Know Where I Come From

Who Am I Really?

Daniela was born in a small mining town in Chile. Adopted by a German family who moved from South America to Miami, she never felt like she belonged. While struggling as a teenager and burning to know more about her own heritage she was psychoanalyzed and medicated by doctors, and she wanted to end it all. When she found her maternal sisters online their reunion in Chile was lovely. Later when Daniela’s paternal sisters found her online, the maternal family said they never wanted to hear from her again. Daniela’s reunion with her paternal family has helped her get in touch with her roots and feel whole for the first time in her life.

Read Full TranscriptDaniela: 00:02 I was so, so happy. I was so excited, so happy. My sisters were like, Oh, well, we never did get the results. Let us know. First, let her go first. So first thing I did is I let my sister know and I shouldn’t have done that. Why is that? What happened? Anything turned from them. Everything true and it went from. It went from everything was great and framing. We were really good with each other to to them shutting the door on me and never speaking to me again.

Damon: 00:35 Who am I? Who am I? Who Am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

Damon: 00:47 This is who am I really a podcast about adoptees that have located and connected with their biological family members. I’m Damon Davis and today you’ll meet Daniela. She was born in Chile. Daniela was adopted by a German family who later moved to Miami. She was out of place in her family and out of place in a new country during her teen years. She was seen as a problem given psychotherapy and medicated when in reality she was just passionate in her own self expression. In her twenties, she was able to locate her biological mother and sisters back in Chile and they began a wonderful reunion, but when Daniela discovered her birth father’s true identity, her maternal side turned their backs for good. In the end, Daniela is very thankful for what she now knows about herself as a native Chilean. This is Daniela’s journey. Daniela was born in Coronel. Her mother was low income and it was common for babies to be adopted by foreigners.

Daniela: 01:53 She had a social worker come to her regularly to check up on her, on her pregnancy, uh in those times I guess adoption was big to give babies to foreigners, German families. It was common, so I was, yes, I was adopted, so at three days old I was given away to a German family, lived with them in South America for a couple years till I was seven. I was always told I was adopted. I just always thought I was… I was told I was special and everything was fine. I believe that whole special story until I started going to school and sharing the fact that I was special

Damon: 02:34 and how did that go?

Daniela: 02:36 Oh yeah, no, that wasn’t good. I was like, Oh, I’m special because I’m adopted. Their reaction and started getting from people. Wasn’t you’re special Sorry. Oh, are you okay? Are you sad? Do you know your mom? And that’s when I started thinking, hmm, when I was seven years old, I was like, I don’t know my mom. I’m… This is a sad reaction. Maybe I should be sad. I don’t know. I maybe I am sad. That’s when I started kind of exploring my own feelings into how I really felt about adoption.

Damon: 03:06 Daniela said she never felt like she belonged. Keep in mind she’s a Latina woman in a German family. All of the conversations about how her adopted brother looked like her adopted mother would never apply to her. Interestingly, she did have a Chilean aunt who was adopted by Daniela’s grandmother. She was abused and she lays so she chose to flee the country. When Daniella grandmother left, I went back to Daniela’s mother circumstances for a moment because it struck me that the social worker visited her more than once and it sounded like there was a system for getting foreign families, Chilean babies. It sounded predatory to me. So I asked Daniela about it.

Damon: 03:46 I got the sense from what you described with your birth mother that she was solicited by the social worker and like they were watching her and

Daniela: 03:58 Yes, Yes, yeah.

Damon: 03:58 Really? So it was very predatory social worker there?

Daniela: 04:03 Yes, that’s where she met my birth mother told me in the beginning when, when we, um, when we spoke, when she would speak with me, yeah, she told me that the social worker would come around, basically started making rounds through the trich and visit her quite often telling her, you know, that she could give me a better life than she would give me up and all these things because she doesn’t have their resources. And, and that’s how it was in those days.

Damon: 04:29 Coercion. Around what year was this? 1986 Okay, Wow.

Damon: 04:35 Daniela lived in Chile with her new family for seven years until they relocated to Miami, Florida. That’s where things went from bad to worse for Daniela. She was in a family that she didn’t look like in a country that was unfamiliar and her teenage years were around the corner. She was struggling mentally and her family knew it. The differences between Daniela and her family were becoming more apparent.

Daniela: 04:59 I just went from not wanting to completely lost and my adopted family started taking me to see therapists and psychologists growing up. Um, because see, it’s different when it’s culturally different. I express myself in a different manner. Of course, I come from a different culture. My German family, they express themselves differently, so I was very extreme to them so they resorted to medication and psychologists. I was always kind of considered unstable.

Damon: 05:33 When I hear you say that I have my own preconceived notions about someone of South American descent versus someone of white European descent. But I want to hear how you would describe the differences in how you express yourself versus how they express themselves.

Daniela: 05:53 Where it always went wrong was when we disagreed on things and me, I express myself. I’m, I’m very passionate. Um, I wear all my emotions on my sleeve and that’s just not growing up. I always thought there was something wrong with me because I was like that because I was very expressive and I’m passionate. You know, when I get a when there was a disagreement. I show it with my body, with my facial expressions. My voice can get louder, but it’s not necessarily in a hateful way. It’s more just I’m passionate about what I’m seeing, you know, I, you know, I, I it differently. My whole body expresses itself differently and yeah, exactly. And my adopted family, they are more reserved, very German, straight to the point. There is no expression in the way they move. It’s just a different way. So I was always different. I was always, it was something wrong with me because of the way I was.

Damon: 06:50 She says therapy was a tough experience for her because she was forced to acknowledge her feelings that she felt her life was purchased.

Daniela: 06:57 Looking back now, I see how I can see how, how I like, how, how, how sad it really was because I remember one time my therapist asked me to draw how I felt and I drew. I remember drawing nothing, just better black circle because I didn’t want to be there and I was angry. I would tell her how I felt that I was bought. I was chosen because my parents wanted a girl, so they went to the hospital and looked for a girl. They wanted a baby girl, not a grown girl, so they got a baby girl, you know, had they wanted a boy, they would have gotten a boy and it’s like going to the pet store and choosing the puppy that you want female or male or. I always felt bought.

Damon: 07:36 She was prescribed medications for happiness, antidepressants, concentration and all kinds of conditions until she was 13. Around that time, Daniela was getting wise to the language of therapists, but she learned the hard way. What kinds of things to say and what language to avoid?

Daniela: 07:54 Well, I remember one time backlashing and being completely open because he told you to tell them everything and, and I did and I told him how I would get really sad and I felt like I don’t belong and I don’t want to be a part of the world and, and everything went crazy. Then my parents started to watch me all the time making sure the door was open, my privacy was completely gone. It’s like I got penalized for being honest.

Damon: 08:16 You were on a suicide watch.

Daniela: 08:17 Correct. So that’s when I learned. Okay. I can’t be completely honest.

Damon: 08:22 Yeah. Yeah. You, you learned very quickly. I’ll never say that again.

Daniela: 08:26 Exactly. Yeah. Knowing I was, I was very. I mean I was very depressed. The older I got, the worst it got. I was in the hospital, you know, I did. I did try, did, didn’t care about myself.

Damon: 08:38 You attempted suicide?

Daniela: