S3: E14 Running Towards Mental Health and Self-Discovery in Adoption - Andy Wallis

Have you ever wondered about the deeper psychological impacts of adoption? Join us as we plunge into the emotionally charged story of Andy Wallis, a man adopted in 1973 who has grappled with undiscovered impacts of adoption trauma for over a decade. Andy's unique and poignant tale navigates through his experiences with attachment and detachment in relationships, and how his current partner has been instrumental in his healing journey.

Andy doesn't shy away from sharing his trials and tribulations. He reveals his run of five kilometers a day for a local hospice, inspired by naysayers who said he couldn't. This act of defiance led him to further explore his mental health, culminating in his enrollment in a college course to better understand himself. The episode takes an intimate turn as Andy recounts his quest to obtain his adoption file and original birth certificate, his thoughts on biological family, and the insecurities he copes with regarding his two unknown siblings and absent father. Join us to gain a deeper understanding of adoption's complexities, mental health struggles, and the resilience of the human spirit through Andy's story.


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Website: https://www.whoswally.co.uk/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/andy.wallis.3572/
Book: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/whos-wally-andy-wallis/1144152386

Find your people, cherish your people and love your people.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

Welcome to Wandering Tree Podcast. I am your host, Lisa Am.

Speaker 2: 0:10

Yes, I've got to be honest about it. The one thing that was really obvious to me is the population of certainly the Facebook groups and the communities that I've been involved with, which has mostly been digital, have been female, or at least not male.

Speaker 1: 0:37

Welcome to today's episode of Wandering Tree Podcast. I am your host, Lisa Am, and with me today I have Andy Wallace, and he is from across the pond, and I'm going to let him kind of introduce himself a little bit, give a background and tell us about his adoption story.

Speaker 2: 0:57

Hi Lisa, thank you very much. I am Andy Wallace. I'm from Grantham in the UK. I'm 50 years old this year, started to look into the effects of adoption trauma in my life and how it's affected me, certainly in the last 10 years. I was adopted in 1973. It was a closed adoption then. It wasn't until Well, I mean, my adoption was very good.

Speaker 2: 1:22

Compared to some people's stories, mine was pretty idyllic really. My parents were great people and me and my sister were both loved. So when you read a lot of people's stories, certainly on Facebook groups and things like that, they're really hard and mine certainly wasn't. We all come to the same point at the same time really. You get to sort of midlife and then you realise that there are things that you may have been affected with that could have come from your adoption and the more I looked into it, the more I realised that was the case.

Speaker 2: 1:57

And the more I read and the more I listened to, the more other stories could well have just had my name written on them. It was incredible and I've struggled with my mental health over the years, certainly over the last 10 years. It's only really this year that I've really started to come out of the fog, if you like, and I can see where the issues are. So, yeah, I've been really, I've come to it really late and I feel like I've just had all of it just dumped on me straight out of a bucket that's straight over onto my head and I'm sort of trying to make sense of it and it seems to be happening really quickly.

Speaker 1: 2:37

Yeah, let's pause there for just a second and take a step back. I appreciate that you are willing to share out. You're not looking backwards to how you were raised or the parents that you had, and I think I heard a little bit of general appreciation, which I know some people will translate that into a false sense of gratitude, but there are instances of the journey through adoption. I think that people are generally okay with how they were raised and how they've turned out. I think this is where you're going. It does not mean that there still are not effects of the trauma and how you handle life and then how you've reflected. So I know that you have a passion for health, so can you share with our listeners a little bit about some of your just general personal struggles that you're starting to identify and some key areas that you know are part of a healing journey for you?

Speaker 2: 3:35

Yeah, the main issue for me really has always been with attachments in relationship and it's got an awful lot of upset for me and for the partners in my life, which has been quite a few. It's caused depression in me and anxiety in me and that was the key driving force for me. I wanted to find out how adoption process, how my adoption, may have affected my ability to connect with others and certainly in a romantic relationship kind of way. I've lost kind of friends over the years just through my ability to back away and shrink back.

Speaker 1: 4:14

Do you find yourself more attaching or detaching? I have experienced conversations and then my own life, both of those over attachment and then immediate detachment to build the wall up. Where do you think you land on that?

Speaker 2: 4:31

I have both of those things in equal measure, and it often shows itself in one relationship. So I'll go into the relationship a hundred miles an hour, full on, looking desperately, looking for that attachment and doing everything possible to make sure that attachment is solid and it's there, and then invariably, within 18 months, two years an amount of time I flip over and go the opposite way, thank you, and that's the thing. That's the thing for me that I really want to understand more about, because that's the thing that's affected most of my adult life and I need to know why that happens and how it's happened. And I've seen traces of it in the adoption trauma things that I've read and looked at and I can see it's definitely related. But now I want to see more about why it's related to me and how I dealt with it, and that really is the key thing for me.

Speaker 2: 5:36

Icebot brings on all the other little tiny things that come with it. I say tiny, I mean depression and anxiety are not exactly tiny, but for me they're secondary to the main. Well, I believe is the main cause, and it's not until my recent relationship, where I've been with somebody since 2021, and our relationship is different because she's not run away from me because I've been odd and I've done a flip-flop thing. She's gone the opposite. She's gone round the back of the theatre and started looking in the back and trying to find out why, and now you know, we're coming back together, we're building things back up, and she's involved in all the things that I'm doing to combat this and learn about it. She's just as fast as I am, and for me that has been incredible, and so it's really given me the strength to go right.

Speaker 2: 6:33

I've got to a point where I feel solid enough to be able to now investigate this, find the solution for the sake of those really.

Speaker 1: 6:40

Well, let's talk a little bit about your investigative actions. What kind of work have you been doing that is getting you to these types of conversations, the things you're doing on social media? I'd like us to talk a little bit about that as well. And you know how you want to get past the next, whatever it is.

Speaker 2: 6:59

Yes, I'm still in the process of finding a suitable counsellor. I've had counselling in the past. In fact, I've had one counsellor that I once went to about ten years ago, maybe a bit less, because I was suffering from depression and it was all linked to a particular relationship at the time and I walked in and sat down and she asked me what had brought me there, and the first things I said to her was well, first things, I'm adopted, but I'm not going to talk about that because I don't believe it's related and looking back now I thought that was crazy. So, yes, I'm looking for another counsellor to start that process, someone that deals with adoption issues, and I believe I've found one and that will start next week. But the thing that's really started to bring me into all this is my partner suggested that I should start writing it down.

Speaker 2: 7:55

Writing is a healthy thing to do. It's really good stuff. It helps you look in wooden and investigate yourself on the page, and I'd always written a little bit here and there. I've got a few unfinished books like I'm about. I thought, well, I don't really have the need to write, but I'll try it. So I started to write just about contemporary things, recent things that have happened that I think might have been related, and before I knew it, after about three weeks I've got sort of like seven or eight down words, and that for me was way beyond what I'd written in the past about anything.

Speaker 1: 8:31

I think that's fantastic.

Speaker 2: 8:33

Yeah, I started to think, well, I need. I started to get to the point where I was going to write a book. I thought, well, I'll write a book because people do it, and why not? And so I started at chapter one and started writing and I got some way in and then I started to feel the pressure in able to complete the book. I don't even know if I'm going to be able to finish this. It's too much pressure.

Speaker 2: 8:55

So then I decided I was going to blog and I thought I could sort of narrow it down into smaller chunks, into articles, and put that in the blog. Even if it goes nowhere, it doesn't matter, it's on, it's on the it's on there. It's in an easier format to be able to get my thoughts down. But the more I did that, the more I was thinking this should really be seen by the people, not for my own benefit, but just on the off chance it might just get somebody else's mind working and thinking. So then I started to share the blog online on adoption groups, and that was the scariest thing I've done for a while, because I'm not a great lover of social media.

Speaker 2: 9:34

I get really anxious about letting go of the gorilla grip that I've got on my own personal space and for days after that first post went out, I was shaking. I'm physically shaking. For days I just couldn't get rid of the anxiousness that was in and I just kept going and I just put a bit of it and I kept going and I've written more and more and more and more and more and more people have come back with stories of how it resonates with them and encouragement to keep going. It's been absolutely incredible and for someone that just a few months ago thought they were thinking things that nobody else has ever thought about they were on their own in their thoughts and their worries and their life To find this huge community of people that feel exactly the same as me. It's just blown my little tiny mind really.

Speaker 1: 10:26

So, andy, we've touched on a little bit of you know some really key trauma topics and how they have impacted you personally and your quick immersion and a short amount of time and having an overwhelming feeling. Then also, at the same time, the embracement of the community. One of the aspects that drew me to you and a few other adaptees is what I'm seeing and I'd like you to talk about it a little bit A movement in the community where more gentlemen are starting to talk publicly, sharing out their story and creating kind of a circle of trust and journey, experience and positivity. So tell me a little bit about how you have felt. Try not to get too gender divided, but there is a little bit of a difference in our community. I'd really like to allow our listeners to experience that from that angle, because it's a quick, moving group right now and I'm excited about it for male adoptees.

Speaker 2: 11:40

Yes, I've got to be honest. That is the one thing that I really was. Really obvious to me is that I would have said 90% of the population of the Facebook groups and the communities that I've been involved in, which has mostly been digital, have been female, or at least not male, and out of that 10% of males that are in, only maybe I don't know maybe 50% of those would choose to like, share, comment. And it's really obvious when you, when I put a post out, when I say something, when I, when I, when I publish something, there is hardly any male voices coming back and hardly any male voices sharing new stuff or stuff about themselves or aspects of their own adoption. I've always been very open, which is a strange way really, because because inside I'm quite a closed off wall building kind of person, but on the outside I'm, I'll share with anybody, but if it becomes down to me not really understanding where my issues are, then I end up closing off. But on the whole I'm really open and I find that not many men are.

Speaker 2: 13:01

I actually started a male adoption group because I didn't find many on Facebook, because I thought maybe it's the inclusion of women in the groups that is causing a lot of the men not to want to share, because if a lot of the issues were based on relationships, then they may feel that they might offend the opposite sex women, females by their comments. So I thought, well, let's remove one, remove the females from that population and let's see. Let's see what happens. I'm not ready, but it's been going for about a week now, a week or two. They are starting to start into use the space and I'm trying not to be too adminny and I'm trying to leave the people to share as well as I want really. So I hope it grows and I hope it does become something that people can. People could use more and share more, because I think it's important.

Speaker 1: 14:01

Yeah, I do too. I interviewed a few gentlemen and I do want to just make kind of more of a generalized comment. I do think it might be a little more difficult. I don't know why. I can't even pretend to know why. Maybe there's other societal stigmas that we just have not tapped into. I would use a similar or a parallel area. I put it from the perspective of tapping into birth mother shame and how hard it is for birth mothers to speak about their shame and so not being on the side, you know, the other side of the gender coin. I don't know what the stigma of quid or could not be Right. I can't find the relationship to it.

Speaker 1: 14:43

I definitely notice it and so I'm really encouraged for our community where there are opportunities. We've talked a little bit about the way you've approached life in the past and I see a theme of it here a lot of rigor, all in go for it. Do you have examples of how you've done that in the past and how you're transferring that into this environment?

Speaker 2: 15:05

to answer your success points I've got one particular one actually that I'm just writing about for the book, which is not hugely related to adoption, but I can see where there are elements of me from the adoption in it, and that is that a few years ago I was a professional photographer and I was busy. I was a busy fall really. I was still working full time and I had a photography business as well and I also wrote and delivered training courses for beginners and I had a camera club which I was running. I also had built a photo booth for weddings and events and things like that. You can imagine how busy I was and I'd got children at home. I was in a relationship at that time. I never stopped. Well, one of the people that I did some work for was a local hospice to me and I donated time to cover their events for them, and I did that for a couple of years and I was also a runner.

Speaker 2: 16:00

One day I sort of started to think that the photography wasn't really. I didn't feel like I was doing enough. I felt the people in the button get pressed and then maybe it was a bit of a self esteem or something. I didn't feel like I was doing enough. I had a couple of days to think about it and then I sent an email to one of the people there that said I want to run five kilometers a day for you for a year, and they loved the idea, and so I did it. But one of the things that made me do it more than anything was somebody I used to work with. When they found out I was doing, it, told me that I was an idiot and I wouldn't be able to last more than three weeks. So I thought, well, now I'm going to do it because you say I can't, and so the part of it was about as well, really. But yeah, I spent 12 months running at least five kilometers a day, sometimes twice a day, and sometimes the software I used to track the route didn't record. So I'd just get home, realize you hadn't recorded, turn around and go straight back out again and do 10K that day.

Speaker 2: 17:07

I ran them half marathon in that period of time as well, and I went all out. I mean, I was on the news, I was local radio, I was in the local newspapers, I was doing videos and talks, I ran with the Football Association. It was just went crazy for it. It was everywhere and we raised about £6,000 in the end. So it was brilliant to do. But now I'm writing about it because it's not really written about and I thought about it the other day and I thought surely there's something in that that needs to go in the book because it's just on the block. It was just too full on for it not to be important. So that is a real, proper people please. The moment scale of the heights of people, pleaded mountain there.

Speaker 1: 17:54

Yeah, I was also going to add into it, maybe a theme of hypervigilance. Oh yeah, right.

Speaker 2: 18:02

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:02

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:03

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1: 18:05

I think that I'm hearing from you as well in our conversation. You know just kind of how it is to have your early come out of the fog moments and how your mind is trying to rationale pretty much your entire life. I've been there. I can relate to that.

Speaker 2: 18:24

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:25

Doing the full reflection and saying things to yourself that are associated with. Am I depressed?

Speaker 2: 18:32

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:32

Do I have anxiety? So you've touched on those two. Do I people please? Oh my goodness, do I people please? I've heard that for you as well. And hypervigilance we just kind of added that in there, and so it's a lot to rationale for that. And I appreciate that you want to get to the root, which is what that's your why, the why. What's driving you is getting to the root of all of those things and sharing those out through the, through your blog, through your social media group and then through your book. Where do you see yourself going next? I think there's some educational aspect you have in mind as well.

Speaker 2: 19:09

I have no idea. I am literally unboggling as I'm going and if you read the blog posts from start to from when I first started, which is not that long ago, two weeks ago to now, you will see it's obvious. You know my writing style is lighter and I'm finding more humor in things and it's not as dark as it was right at the start. I literally am sometimes learning as I type. I go from not knowing at the start of a blog post to getting 60% there by the time I finish.

Speaker 2: 19:42

And I am fascinated by my mental health and mental health generally, because although I'm not in the super extreme end of any condition, I have been pretty bad. I mean, this year particularly was I spent probably three months in the darkest, lowest point. So it fascinates me that I get to that point and get out of that point. And so I've started to taken on a college course to a college in London which is done remotely and that is just to learn awareness of mental health really, and it's only a few weeks course and it covers every aspect that you can imagine, but only in a relatively sort of small way. But it's teaching me about how to deal with certain aspects, how clinically it's dealt with how it affects people, how it affects other members of the family or carers, and I think if I'm going to write about things that are leading into mental health, I should be able to understand more of it. So I just don't have a clue where it's going. I'm just going from day to day and seeing where it leads me.

Speaker 1: 20:51

Does that feel different to you than maybe in the past as well? Is this a new adventure for you to not be so in the grip of control of what's going to happen?

Speaker 2: 21:02

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm still fully in control. I'm still absolutely gripped tight. That's not gone away yet. I don't know. That is the biggest problem. I think I don't know how I'm going to let go of some of this stuff, because I can talk about it all day and I do feel like I'd let go of some of it, but sometimes I haven't. Sometimes that box is still shut and this is why I'm not relying on my own mind to get to the bottom of it, like I've said. In one of the blog posts, I said that I feel like I know what my issues are, but they're behind the plate of glass and I can't get to them. But I'll see them and I can recognize them in the street. I need a big hammer to smash through that kind of glass so I can get my hands on them properly, and I don't feel like I'm equipped to do that on my own. But knowing what they are and being able to talk about them is the first step really.

Speaker 1: 22:00

Yeah, I would venture, andy, a lot of the listeners can relate to that and exactly where you are as well, I know it runs through me. There are many days where I wonder what's going to be next. I know this sounds maybe a little dark in a weird way. Am I going to be able to survive the next hit? Can I take it Like what's coming next? Just grappling with the anticipation and not being in control and the anxiety that comes with that.

Speaker 2: 22:34

Well, that's a half a vision, isn't it, when you're not aware of what's coming up, but you're so looking forward, to looking as far ahead as you can, to see if you can spot that error, that fault, that next pitfall. I suppose, with what I'm doing now, the work I'm doing now, is that, yes, you're right, I'm not actually looking at the pitfalls, I'm just blindly going forwards and just accepting what happens. Really. Yes, you're probably right. That is quite a new thing for me.

Speaker 1: 23:04

I do want to touch on another aspect of your story, how we started the conversation that you've had basically a fairly ideal again we'll use the word ideal childhood to adulthood. Where do you stand with your biological family? When we talked about this in preparation for this discussion, I loved what you said.

Speaker 2: 23:24

Yeah, that's an interesting one, because that is something that is prominent in adoption community, isn't it? When what I wanted to do was find out more information about where I came from, I think that's in everyone everyone that doesn't have that information, at least, when I went through the process of being able to get hold of my adoption file and my original birth certificate, and in that information was obviously details about my birth parents, I didn't intend to look for them. I went into this back in 1998. Wasn't interested. I look back now and think that part of it is a big part of it is not wanting to upset people. I didn't want to upset anybody in my adoptive family by making any effort to find my birth parents. Really, I mean my mom, my adoptive mom. She was a little upset. She was worried that I was going to find my other parents and then leave them behind. Of course, that was never going to happen. I've always maintained that I only have one set of parents and they're the ones that put all the effort in to bring to the point there's a lot of love between us and that's how it should be. I don't have any interest in doing so.

Speaker 2: 24:36

I did actually speak to my birth mother. There is some writing about this on the blog. I did speak to my birth mother on the telephone once and I was pretty much told to go away and then they phoned back after about 15 minutes and then we had a 20 minute conversation, which really didn't fill me up at all. It wasn't a good conversation and I came away feeling almost rejected again, and that stayed with me. Later on, about 10, 12 years later, one of my other sisters found me and I've had a great relationship with her and it's been really nice. It's been brilliant to find her. We get on really well. I don't know how much we look alike or whatever, but it's been nice.

Speaker 2: 25:23

What I did find out was that her adoptive mom had the opportunity to adopt me as well and then chose not to because of financial reasons. We had two opportunities to be together as kids and they all lived on both. Really Even now I found one sister, and now I've got another, and now I've got brothers that I don't know. I know there's two more siblings out there, but I don't know anything about them. I don't know where my dad is. He's not on my birth certificate At this point in time.

Speaker 2: 25:53

I genuinely don't feel any kinship with that side of my life at all. My original name was David and I maintain that I don't feel as much as if David died and I'm just carrying the grief of that debt and I don't think and I might be wrong, but I don't think that I would benefit from knowing more at this point, because I feel that the issues I live with are, yes, related to my adoption, absolutely, but there are no reasons why I was adopted. I don't think they're gonna help me. But again, I can say I might be wrong, time will tell.

Speaker 1: 26:29

Yeah, I think that's a great perspective. Well, as we start wrapping up our conversation, we have touched on again some pretty significant things. What is an item that you would want the listeners to leave with knowing about you, and where are you, social media-wise, that if there are other gentlemen listeners that want to get into a more finite safe space, where do they go? Look?

Speaker 2: 26:56

Okay, well, the driving force behind everything that I've done so far has been to find out about me, and then there was the element of wanting to share so that other people may find something in that that resonates with them, and that is what you know. I really hope that that does help other people. The blog is called who's Wally because my name was Wally. I just thought it really fits, because I don't know who I am. I'm sure there is parts of it that I don't understand. So the blog is called who's Wally and the book also be called who's Wally. The male adoption group on Facebook is called Mind Maintenance and the who's Wally website is who's Wally but Credit UK. So it's pretty straightforward, and if anybody fancies looking on there, that'll be fantastic.

Speaker 1: 27:45

Well, let's close with this. If there was one thing you had wished I had asked during this conversation, what would it be and what would be your answer?

Speaker 2: 27:53

Yeah, I'm sure there'll be a hundred questions that I'd wish you'd asked me in about an hour and a half, but as it turns out now, I can't think about it.

Speaker 1: 28:02

I love that. I actually love that, because that is is that not an adoptee over thinker's mind right there? That says nothing. Comes to my mind. However, what we're done talking, and I decompress from this conversation, I'm probably gonna think of about a million things. Just to be clear, I'm gonna have the same thing, Andy. I'm gonna be decompressing from our conversation and I'm gonna be like, oh darn, I really wish I would have said this to him or asked about this.

Speaker 2: 28:33

I think I covered everything that you know driven me to do what I'm doing now, and I genuinely can't think of anything now.

Speaker 1: 28:39

Well, as we close out, then, I would love to say thank you for joining us. You're just jumping right in and diving, and cold water and all of the analogies we could think of, and I appreciate it and you are welcome back here anytime. I look forward to continuing the dialogue.

Speaker 2: 28:55

Yes, thank you very much. We enjoyed it. It's been good. Thanks very much for giving us a chance to come on and bow at my 50-year-old nonsense.

Speaker 1: 29:02

Thank you for listening to today's episode. Make sure to rate, review and share. Want to join the conversation? Contact us at wanderingtreeecom. Although I will repay you.