108 – On The Outside Is Where I’ve Always Been - a podcast by Damon L. Davis

Pam, from Emeryville, CA, told me her desire to search started when she was a kid, but it was Oregon’s laws that changed everything for her search. When she met her birthmother she encountered a woman who couldn’t relay the details of her past, leaving Pam with only her paternal side of the story. He says that what is alleged against him is not true, but Pam is having a hard time forgiving the man. This is Pam’s journey.
Pam (https://www.temi.com/editor/t/grVgoPGkQWx1SzeJqndGGrocNJz6cDkJCAKtRelPXieJA7SDAYRHwzpLEeiFEhU70YdebGpzeUM8udtWUk5T2DCFfeo?loadFrom=DocumentDeeplinkandts=4.19 (00:04)):
So I thought that from the time I was 19, until I started meeting people in my mid thirties, that was part of my trying to identify what it meant to be alive. Even it's like, Oh, and then I thought, gosh, my mom might not want me to come find her because maybe I'm a traumatic thing. She wants to forget.
Damon (https://www.temi.com/editor/t/grVgoPGkQWx1SzeJqndGGrocNJz6cDkJCAKtRelPXieJA7SDAYRHwzpLEeiFEhU70YdebGpzeUM8udtWUk5T2DCFfeo?loadFrom=DocumentDeeplinkandts=32.84 (00:32)):
Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? 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 on today's show is Pamela. She called me from Emeryville, California. Pam told me her desire to search started when she was a kid, but it was Oregon's laws that changed everything for her. When she met her birth mother, she encountered a woman who couldn't relay the details of her past leaving Pam with only her paternal side of the story. He says that what was alleged against him is not true, but Pam is having a hard time forgiving the man. This is Pam's journey. Pam grew up in a suburb of Portland, Oregon called Milwaukee and in Redmond, Washington and Pamela's family. They didn't ask about adoption when she was four or five. Her parents took time to convey that she was loved, chosen and special in her experience. She had everything a child could want and everything that came with what she called a privileged white, upper middle class upbringing and upbringing, devoid of emotion. I asked Pam what she meant by that.
Pam (https://www.temi.com/editor/t/grVgoPGkQWx1SzeJqndGGrocNJz6cDkJCAKtRelPXieJA7SDAYRHwzpLEeiFEhU70YdebGpzeUM8udtWUk5T2DCFfeo?loadFrom=DocumentDeeplinkandts=126.71 (02:06)):
I was discouraged from being an expressive child. They were very sort of stoic people. And so if I were to express some bright emotion, it would be tamped down somehow I would be told I was being hysterical or you know, these kinds of things. So it was just, I think we were really mismatched with each other. I'm a very warm emotive person and they were very cool unemotive. People.
Damon (https://www.temi.com/editor/t/grVgoPGkQWx1SzeJqndGGrocNJz6cDkJCAKtRelPXieJA7SDAYRHwzpLEeiFEhU70YdebGpzeUM8udtWUk5T2DCFfeo?loadFrom=DocumentDeeplinkandts=157.49 (02:37)):
It sounded like her passion and fervor for life were not at all meant by her parents' personalities. She said, she always felt very odd and out of place. Pamela has one older brother non-biological to herself and her parents conceived one biological son as well. She's sandwiched between her brothers and they're all only about 16 months apart in age, she said in her toddler pictures, when you look at her adoptive mom, you can see she's expecting their younger brother. I was curious about how the siblings got along, especially since she and her older brother share an adoption kinship. I wondered if it drew them closer.
Pam (https://www.temi.com/editor/t/grVgoPGkQWx1SzeJqndGGrocNJz6cDkJCAKtRelPXieJA7SDAYRHwzpLEeiFEhU70YdebGpzeUM8udtWUk5T2DCFfeo?loadFrom=DocumentDeeplinkandts=195.27 (03:15)):
Actually, not really. No. My brothers are very close with each other and I'm kind of the, the black sheep person in the family. My oldest brother was adopted at birth and I was adopted later. Um, I was five months old and kind of came to my...

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