Ashlea was adopted at birth into a loving family — and spent the next two decades not processing a single emotion about it. In this episode, she opens up about what happened when she finally did: the counselor who called her Pollyanna, the rock bottom in her late twenties, and the treatment center where she learned that nearly half the room was adopted.

We talk about disenfranchised grief — the grief you are not allowed to name because it is for someone you never lost, in the conventional sense — and why so many adoptees end up in crisis before anyone thinks to ask them how they are actually doing.

Ashlea is now a nurse practitioner who works to get on the front end of that crisis, helping adoptive families have the conversations before things come apart. She shares what she would tell adoptive parents today, what she wishes her family had known, and what she would go back and say to her younger self.

This is one of the most honest conversations we have had on this show. If you are an adoptee, an adoptive parent, or someone who has ever pushed something too far down for too long — this one is for you.

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Topics covered: adoption grief, adoptee identity, disenfranchised grief, adoptee mental health, adoption and substance use, adoptive parenting, closed adoption, emotional processing, adoption reunion, identity and belonging.