Content Warning: This episode contains discussions of child trafficking, black-market adoption, childhood abuse, sexual assault, addiction, abandonment, and trauma. Some topics may be difficult to hear. Please listen with care.
She was sold as a newborn on a Texas hospital curb. No legal adoption. No official paperwork. And a lifetime of questions about who she really was.
Author, adoption reform advocate, and founder of My Adopted Life, Patricia Knight Meyer, joins Giving Pain Purpose for Part One of a deeply personal conversation about black-market adoption, identity, abandonment, and the lifelong impact of childhood trauma. Her story, told in her memoir Wonderland, began in 1970 when an attorney arranged her adoption through an illegal transaction that left her family living in secrecy and Patricia growing up without the truth of her origins.
Together, Patricia and Lyndsay explore the hidden realities of the adoption industry, the emotional toll of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and how abandonment trauma can shape our relationships, sense of belonging, and connection to our own bodies. They talk about addiction, childhood sexual trauma, chronic illness, and the painful ways we learn to seek love and acceptance when we have never truly felt safe.
But beneath the secrets and unanswered questions is a little girl who spent her life trying to save the people who were supposed to protect her. Patricia shares how writing, therapy, and learning to care for her younger self became part of her healing journey—and what finally pushed her to begin searching for her biological family.
Finding out where you came from is only the beginning of discovering who you really are.
Episode Highlights: (00:00) Introduction and Content Overview (03:43) Meet Patricia Knightmeyer and Her Story (04:52) The Dark World of Black Market Adoption (07:25) The Baby Scoop Era and Its Consequences (09:45) Secrecy, Corruption, and the Market for Babies (12:37) Current Adoption Practices and Challenges (13:23) The Impact of Adoption Trauma on Health (22:47) Personal Experiences with Dysfunction and Addiction (28:33) Trauma, Sexual Abuse, and Body Connection (36:51) Deciding to Search for Biological Family (39:51) Upcoming: The Search, Reunion, and Advocacy (40:13) Closing Remarks and Next Steps
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