Quote

When I stopped seeing my mother through the eyes of a child, I saw the woman who helped me give birth to myself.

My mother was totally different from the mothers of my friends. She would never separate from me. In a way, my life belongs to her. When I was a child, she complained that I was anorexic, so they sent me to places to get me to eat. When I look at pictures of myself, I was just a normal-looking child. It was her fantasy.

My parents raised me to not ever look at race or color, so it doesn't have a big part in my self-identity.

A lot of my personality was informed by feeling very different in the world I grew up in, feeling that I didn't fully belong, that my parents didn't belong.

As an adopted person, once you find out about that 'other' side of yourself, it's almost like you find out who you really are.

Because of my unique experience as my mom's child, the beginning of my journey was more about me trying to figure out who I was on my own. My mom is one of the greatest moms and so supportive of all my siblings and of all of us being who we are, and not who she wanted us to be.

All my life, I had this idea that if I could unravel the mystery that was my mother, then I could help save her. But it didn't really work. We were close, but she struggled with mental illness and alcoholism, and it was rough at times.

My mother helped me to be who I am: to have strength and not to let people run all over me and yet to be humble; to realise that all of this that I have today could be gone.

My sister basically showed me how to be a person for many years of my life. I just didn't really fit anywhere, and my sister was always really comfortable in who she was.

My mom has made it possible for me to be who I am. Our family is everything. Her greatest skill was encouraging me to find my own person and own independence.