Dr. Kristen Kirkland

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373 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Aug 2026 last heard 5 Aug

Dr. Kristen Kirkland’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.

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Cate & Ty Break It Down · Dr. Kristin Kirkland: When Adoption and Human Trafficking Intersect · 5 Aug 2026 podcast

But exploiting an adoptee for profit, we know the industry is very much for profit and exploitation is making a profit on that transaction of adoption.

But then it's just, I feel, a lifetime of identity exploitation.

For a lot of private infant adoptees, like we very much see the mental health ramifications of forced assimilation into a family of strangers.

So that's just a very like 30,000 foot view.

Obviously, it's a complex topic, but that's where I'm at.

Yes, which, by the way, as a medical professional, I love an acronym.

So the fact that there was already an acronym for this, great.

But FOG stands for fear, obligation, and guilt.

And it's adoptees speak for those factors that we are usually not aware of that keep us from reckoning with what adoption means for us on an individual level.

Basically, it's the lullaby that keeps us asleep to the circumstances that led to us growing up the way we did.

Adoptees who say, oh, I'm fine.

I'm happy.

I have no desire to understand this, or I don't have trauma.

Maybe so.

But I often, you know, these days default to, you know, I was the same way and I was very much in the fog.

I was afraid of reckoning with that or I didn't think I needed to.

So the fog, it's an apt word and it's a great acronym.

Looking back, like hindsight being 20-20, I see times where I kind of was seeing those glimmers or glimpses of this might not be what I think it is.

I was thinking about this quite a bit yesterday.

I'm getting close to my birthday, so every year I just tend to be a little bit more interested in revisiting some of the circumstances and learning more about how I came into the world.

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