Adoptee to Adoptive Mom: Identity, Grief & Healing the Brain

What happens when an adoptee becomes an adoptive mom?In this deeply honest conversation, Dolly Regier shares what it means to live on both sides of the adoption triad. Adopted from South Korea and raised in a multi-racial adoptive family, Dolly grew up hearing the beautiful parts of her story but not always the grief underneath it. When she felt called to adopt herself, the process unexpectedly reopened questions she had buried for years: identity, belonging, birth family, and the silent weight of loss that adoption carries.As her daughter entered the teenage years, Dolly found herself face-to-face with familiar struggles identity confusion, racial visibility in a small rural town, and the complicated tension between pride and privacy in adoption narratives. She shares what it means to guard a child’s story, to avoid oversharing, and to parent through trauma while still healing your own.The conversation turns to hope as Dolly explains how neurofeedback became a turning point for her family. After years of navigating trauma responses, therapy resistance, and parenting triggers, she discovered a brain-based tool that helped regulate not just her daughter, but the entire family system. This episode is a powerful reminder: healing is possible, and when the brain finds safety, the whole family can change.What You’ll LearnThe hidden grief many adoptees carry beneath the “chosen” narrativeWhat it’s like to adopt after being adoptedWhy protecting your child’s adoption story mattersIdentity struggles for transracial adoptees in small communitiesHow trauma shows up differently in teensWhat neurofeedback is and how it helps with trauma and regulationWhy nervous system healing works best when the whole family participatesJoin the Parenting Different newsletter here: https://www.parentingdifferent.com/freeSubscribe for more episodes on adoption, trauma, identity, and parenting with truth and care.