Secret Son
The (adoptee) podcast about searching, identity and secrecy
Secret Son
A Braverman Than I
I met therapist/adoptee advocate Joe Soll in the mid-90s in New York City.
We'll discuss decades-long family searches, "spaciness" and getting fed up with living in secrecy.
As we all slowly beat back the darkness and embrace much-needed longer days (I'm looking at you especially, Berlin), this is the perfect episode to shine some light on the adoptee perspective.
Druids and pagans and normies - together, onward into the light!
Music, as always, by the inimitable Cassis Birgit Staudt.
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Joe Soll is a NY State Licensed Psychotherapist: 845-268-0283
Approved Adoption Counselor: United Kingdom Dept. of Health
Member: International Association of Trauma Professionals
Certified Clinical Trauma Professional
Diplomate: American Psychotherapy Association (retired)
Fellow: American Orthopsychiatric Association (retired)
Joe Soll 조 살, the author of "Adoption Healing... a path to recovery" (4 versions plus one in German and one in Chinese and one in Korean), Perilous Passage, co-author of "Evil Exchange" and "Fatal Flight", is a reunited adoptee, psychotherapist and lecturer internationally recognized as an expert in adoption related issues. He is director and co-founder of Adoption Crossroads, an international, non-profit organization consisting of over 470 adoption agencies, mental health institutions and adoption search and support groups in 8 countries, representing over 500,000 individuals whose lives have been affected by adoption. Adoption Crossroads is dedicated to educating the public about adoption issues and reforming current adoption practices.
The director and founder of the Adoption Counseling Center in New York City, Mr. Soll is also co-organizer and co-chair of the NY State Adoption Agency Task Force; a member of Matilda Cuomo's 1993 Advisory Council on the "Adoption Option"; past exec. board member of the Amer. Adoption Congress and a former trustee of the International Soundex Reunion Registry.
Since 1989, Mr. Soll has organized and coordinated ten international mental
This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it, either by its hosts or any guests, is to be construed as psychological, medical or legal advice.
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To make a one-time donation or become an ongoing patron:
https://www.patreon.com/secret_son
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Podcast: www.secretsonpod.com
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/secret_son
Mike Personal Site: www.miketrupiano.com
Voice: https://soundcloud.com/heartlandrefugee/sets
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Show Link:
https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1659085017
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Produced by: Trout Sound GbR Trupiano & Staudt copyright 2024
All rights reserved
Secret Son Interview with Joe Soll
Mike 00:01
This is Mike Trupiano. Welcome to episode two. Today, we're diving back into our topic – searching, identity and secrecy.
00:21
When I was in college, I
Mike 00:22
felt like I had about seventeen different major - English, political science, history, German - I think even French - and then I would switch back - history again. My political science advisor told me once - "well, you're kind of all over the place." That's an understatement. When I got out of college, I was still all over the place. I went from Missouri to New Orleans because I wanted that experience. I wanted to live in New Orleans. Writers that I really liked had lived there and said it blew their mind. Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, Mark Twain. From there, I went to New York. New York was too expensive. After six months, I went to Chicago. After three years in Chicago, Chicago was too cold. I pulled another geographical. I went back to New York. How long would I stay this time? No idea. The winters were better; the city seemed more interesting, at least to me then, and somehow I landed in the adoptee search and support group of today's guest. Joe Soll, from his own apartment, ran an adoptee group, which was a lifesaver for many people and, speaking for myself, it was the first time ever I had heard my own experience reflected back to me instead of being told - forget about it, get over it, move on. What you instead heard in this group was - yeah, this was actually a big deal that happened to you. That group was a lifesaver. Joe and I will talk about that and a lot more today.
Mike 02:04
How are you, Joe?
Joe
I am good. Thanks for having me on the show.
Mike 02:08
I think I first met you in spring of ‘95 when I went to your adoptee search and support group in your apartment, I believe, on the Upper East Side.
Joe
Well, I'm glad you found us back then.
Mike
That's amazing. I'm wondering how I found you, pre-Internet, really - must have been in the newspaper that I saw an ad and then you connected me immediately with my contact in the Midwest and she found my mother immediately.
Joe
That’s fantastic.
Mike
You found your mother fairly recently.
Joe 02:37
Eight years ago, I found I found out who she was and I found her grave, unfortunately, but at least I found her.
Mike 02:42
And you found out your original name at that time or did you know it?
Speaker 1 02:46
No, I did not know it. My birth certificate and all the information was forged. I was sold by a baby broker who sold babies for forty years. So, she always falsified the birth certificates, etc. but, through Ancestry, one of my cousins found me - not to help me with my mother but just to make a connection - and, all of a sudden, he said - my God, I know who your mother is. It was serendipitous because I had looked everywhere for thirty years. So, I found these wonderful cousins who helped me through all of it. I hear from them - at least one a day.
Mike 03:26
I complain about still being a secret to most of my - both sides of my family that I found, which is kind of the reason I've decided to start this. I don't know how to deal with the secrecy, but those of us who find anything are somewhat lucky. I mean, my father was deceased. I never met him but I've met some siblings.
Joe 03:45
I’m sorry that you found a grave but why does it have to be a secret at all, any of it?
Mike 03:50
Well, let’s start the show. It's a good question.
Joe 03:56
I always ask myself the following question - what will this do to the rest of my life if I share my secret? What's it going to do to the rest of my life? Is it going to destroy it? And the answer for me, at least, has always been - no, it will not destroy my life.
Mike 04:10
Well, I'm trained to think of others first. So, what's it going to do to them? If someone tells me - well, it's best for us - it works better for us if you stay a secret -
Joe
Why shouldn't you come first? I know it's not easy.
Mike [00:04:24]
I know you're not a therapist. Are you? Okay?
Joe
Yes, I am.
Mike
Okay.
Joe 04:28
So, I deal with helping people with this every day and I know secrets and lies are terrible but the price that we pay to keep a secret - what it does to our freedom to be authentic.
Mike 04:42
With your adoptive family - could you go to them and say - I really want to know where I come from?
Joe 04:47
Not until I had years of therapy. I couldn't have done it either and then, when I was ready, I said to my therapist, I'm going to give my mother a heart attack if I tell her I'm searching. And she said - what makes you think you're so effing powerful that you could give somebody a heart attack? And I took the risk and my adoptive mom was very willing and did help me. We didn't - it was to no avail, because everything was a lie on my papers but, nevertheless, she tried to help, which I'm very thankful for. There's still part of my family who don't want to hear about it. The adoptive family - they don't want to hear that I found my first family. They think it's a betrayal. That's their problem. It's not a betrayal. Everybody has the right to know where they come from. Why should it be a secret?
Mike 05:32
I connected with a half-sister on DNA - on Ancestry - and then we met oddly in Europe. She happened to be working here, and we went to lunch and we were talking generally about adoption. Of course, I had to walk on eggshells because I was afraid she's going to disappear. And I said - a lot of adoptees just wait until their adoptive parents die before they even dare to search and she nodded vociferously, like - well, yeah, of course. That was the implication - they owe it to them not to search while they're still alive.
Joe
But why should I be grateful to have a family? Every child deserves to have a family and be nurtured and give them health and education, etc. but why do I owe them for that? If somebody chooses to parent, they owe their child everything. The child doesn't owe the parents, the parents owe the child. That's what parenting is about. So, if my parents don't like it, that's really sad but I don't owe them. The first thing I learned at a support group meeting when I went forty years ago was I did not need to be grateful to my parents. They should be grateful to me to give them a chance to parent but, nevertheless, it's instilled in me, too, that I should be taking care of everybody else first.
Mike 06:50
I had the realization, I think, the last five years of, like - wait a minute - I created this family, in a sense, my adoptive sister and I. We're the ones who should be praised and constantly thanked.
Joe
Absolutely. You gave them gifts.
Mike
Yeah, the chance to be parents. I remember there was a Little House on the Prairie episode where Michael Landon's family took in some kids but they didn't change their name and it's just like - yeah, we're raising the McManus boy. And I keep thinking it's so much more confusing for me to not have had my original name and to know - oh yeah, I have an original name and another family out there. The thinking or the rationalization is like - oh, it's just too confusing for kids to let them know that to be in contact with their blood family.
Joe 07:37
It’s too confusing not to know. We're always thinking about our first family consciously or not and that's why we adoptees are often labeled Attention Deficit Disorder because our unconscious mind is always wondering what happened to me and why and who and so that can distract us and make us look like we can't concentrate. Well, we're concentrating, all right, just not what anybody knows - trying to find out who is my first mother and why did she not keep me?
Mike 08:05
I’ve been fired from so many jobs - just like - oh, I'm spacy.
Joe 08:09
Why wouldn't you be spacy? It's the power of concentration - I want my mommy is what it really is, way down deep. That little boy inside of us wonders what happened and why and has nothing to do with the mothers who raised us. They're a separate issue. We still have another mother who brought us into the world. That connection is the strongest force in nature. It's a sacred bond and it's indelible and yet it's taken from us or interrupted and we want it back.
Mike 08:36
I tried to just put all this behind me, which I guess is what the world tells us to do but I find that I feel better when I'm plugged into the adoptee world and can see these issues reflected back to me. I often shame myself that it's like - oh, it's wallowing - it's not dealing in the solution.
Joe 08:55
It’s not wallowing. So, let's change everything. Supposing when I was a year old, I had an accident and my arm was cut off and so they give me a prosthesis. Am I ever going to forget that I'm missing that arm? Am I ever going to look at that arm and not wonder what happened and why when I'm an adult and isn't that natural? We lost a whole mother. We didn't lose just an arm. We can't put it behind us. We can try. I tried too.
Mike [00:09:21]
Were you told at a young age you were adopted?
Joe
I was teased in the schoolyard when I was four, just in early kindergarten and I was teased. I lived in a small town and everybody knew. So, the kids teased me and that's how I found out.
Mike 09:36
Oh, wow. I've heard this story before - not from you. I mean, sort of this type of story before. So, they said - you're adopted.
Joe 09:43
Ah ha ha! You're adopted kids. Kids made fun of me because of it and I was devastated. And those words are ugly words, at least when you hear it that way. But you know what? It really doesn't matter what age you are when you find out. How you find out matters. There was research, actually, by a group of psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers to try and figure out what you could tell an adopted child to make it be okay and the answer was - there's nothing you can do to make it be okay, right? So, the loss of a mother is an enormous loss for a child and it doesn't matter - the nicest adoptive parent of the world can't make that go away.
Mike 10:22
That's what was confusing for me for a while because I grew up in a lot of violence, a lot of religious repression, a lot of boundary violations and I thought that was the issue and with my drifting, with my constantly being borderline homeless. I hear from other adoptees and they're like - they grew up in relatively stable adoptive families and they have a lot of issues and that really made me see - oh, maybe it's deeper. It's deeper than that.
Joe 10:48
The famous therapist Eric Ericsson said that if you don't grow up and know your forebears for two generations, then you cannot have what he called a sense of actuality. And, by that, he meant that people and events will not seem real. We're living in a dream world. It's surreal. So, we drift around from job to job, from place to place. That's normal for us and when people look at us like there's something wrong with us.
Mike 11:17
That can be hard. I know it's hard for me. I feel like - I'm not a drifter. Why do people look at me like I'm a drifter? It does seem dreamlike, though, and the fact that I'm the age I am doesn't seem real. But I guess it's happening.
Speaker 1 11:30
But it doesn’t seem real. So, let me ask you a question. Has anybody ever asked you if you were born? What's your immediate answer to that?
Mike [00:11:39]
I was born?
Joe
Does it feel like you were born?
Mike 11:37
Oh, that's tricky. I would have to say, no.
Joe 11:43
The reason is, first of all, because it's surreal and, second of all, we didn't grow up hearing a story, a birth story, and we grew up, most of us, not looking like anybody. So, I'm an alien and I come from outer space. Well, then I wasn't born. I was adopted. Try to explain this to someone. What do you mean you're not born? Well, intellectually, I know I was but, emotionally, it's really difficult.
Mike 12:04
And therefore, at least for me, I feel like, well, the rules don't apply to me. You know?
Joe 12:10
Right. Exactly. They don't because we're not earthlings. As a friend of mine says - we're not normals. Everything is different for us in a way that we can't explain to anybody who hasn't had our experience. We can't help them understand it.
Mike [00:12:22]
No, there's a language when you plug into an adoptee group - I mean, there's an understanding - a language we all understand. Yeah, I'm simultaneously obsessed with death and what it is. I think it's because I don't have the birth story. Death is a big transformation, you know? And I think, like - well, maybe that'll explain what's going on.
Joe 12:40
Well, when you die, you'll figure it out.
Mike [00:12:42]
Yeah.
Joe [00:12:42]
Well, I understand. There's another piece to it. This is what a colleague of mine said to me - the human brain cannot cognitively understand not growing up with one's own mother. The human brain is not wired to understand that. The human brain says - I have one mother and that's it and, all of a sudden, now I find out I have another one but makes no sense. So, as a child, we're trying to make sense out of something that does not make sense to our brain and cannot ever make sense to our brain. The human brain also cannot understand the fact that it won't exist anymore. The human brain does not deal with death. It can't. It can't conceive of not existing. So, our brain has a huge problem when it comes to growing up without our mothers and dying. So, what we need to do is we have to accept that we're never going to understand it. To find peace, we have to accept we're not going to understand. It doesn't mean it's okay. I'm never going to figure this part of it out. How could it be that I did not grow up with my own mother? Then all the circuits go tilt.
Mike 13:42
I think for me, not having a birth narrative - yeah, not being born - it gives me this vague sense of immortality, of like - well, there's plenty of time.
Joe 13:53
Because we're not human, we can do whatever we want. It's true. It's a mess and try to explain this to somebody else. I wish there was a way to help people understand it. I've asked some of my clients and most of them are women. I'll say something to them, like - they're complaining that their friends don't understand when they talk about adoption. So, I say - how long would it take you to explain to a male friend of yours what it's like to be a woman? How long would it take to explain so that they really understand? Can they really understand? Can anybody really understand what it's like for us? We need empathy, though. We need to have empathy. We need to have somebody say - I'm sorry. I don't understand but I see that it's painful for you.
Mike 14:35
It still feels like a taboo to talk about this stuff and it does feel like I'm transgressing God's mandate, in a sense.
Joe 14:43
Yeah, it feels like a transgression because that's how we were raised. But what price do you pay? I did the same thing. I went along with the plan for a long time and then decided I couldn't do it anymore.
Mike 14:55
I went to your your search and support group - I think it was like February/March of ’95. Had you been thinking about starting that for a long time before that?
Joe 15:05
Oh, I started the group in 1976.
Mike
Wow.
Joe [00:15:10]
I fell into it. It's a long story but I fell into starting the group. It just happened and it just took off because, back then, it was easy to be on television talking about adoption because it was so new that anybody ever talked about it. So, I was sought after by the talk shows. Then my name got known and then I started to have a lot of inquiries. So, I started the group. Yeah. I'm glad I did.
Mike 15:36
It was incredible. I want to say there were thirty-forty people there -
Joe [00:15:40]
That's about right.
Mike [00:15:42]
- in your apartment. Sunday, I think it was. Whoever wanted to, we'd go out to eat to a local restaurant afterward. Definitely the highlight of the week.
Joe 15:53
For me too. Well, we're a tribe and so I was with my people and the same for you. You were with your people.
Mike 15:59
Very brave of you, by the way. I mean, to have - there were a lot of raw people in those meetings, myself being being one of them.
Joe 16:07
I was raw, too. I learned a lot from the group and the group comforted me. It was a two-way street, really.
Mike 16:14
When did you start thinking about searching? Was it from a young age?
Joe 16:18
No, I was told that my mother had died in a car crash, which was a common story many of us were told. So, I believed it. Then, when I was forty-two, I found out that that was a lie. By accident, I found that out. So, then I took off like a shot out of hell and so I started searching and I found search people and got nowhere but I decided I had to get some therapy and help myself. So, I lucked into a great therapist.
Mike
Did they have any conception of adoption?
Joe
Not before she met me but somehow she understood that this was huge. She went out and bought books. There weren't many but she went and bought everything she could find and she helped me find a support group to help me and she nagged me because I didn't want to go. I didn't want to do it and she nagged me to do it. Thank God. Somewhere in her head, she saw the pain of it and there's not a lot of therapists who could do that.
Mike 17:19
I was in therapy over here and, in that time, I reconnected with my mother in 2016. I had found her in ‘95 and kind of cavalierly lost contact with her - the hubris of youth. Then, 2016, I was really struggling and I thought - I have to find her again. Thankfully, I did, and in that time frame, I was seeing this therapist here, and when I finished that therapy, he asked me - is there anything I should know could help me? And I said - well, if you get a new client, ask if they're adopted. I think it would expedite things and it would give you a perspective and he said - oh, how would that be? And I said - well, you know, the science shows that removing a child from its mother causes PTSD. Oh, really? You know, like that. And we talked for a few minutes about that and that's 2016.
Joe 18:06
I had a thought recently about this - that the official diagnosis of post- traumatic stress disorder - that we should throw out the word “disorder” because, really, we're reacting normally to that trauma. So, it's post-traumatic stress but we're not mentally ill. So, I don't like that it's in a book that says that we have a mental disorder. We have a normal reaction to a huge trauma. Now, I'm talking like a therapist again.
Mike [00:18:34]
No, that's true.
Joe [00:18:36]
There's nothing mentally ill about somebody who's adopted and or wants to find out their roots. It's healthy.
Mike 18:43
It's so painful. I know so many adoptees who haven't searched and they're actually adamantly against it and they're just struggling so much.
Joe 18:50
If I don't prepare to search, it's crazy making. I really need to do some real deep therapy to help me deal with the emotions when my brain says this is crazy. How could I have another mother? Why would I search for her? She didn't want me in the first place is what was on in my head. So, we really should reach out to get a therapist and do some preparation. It's hard and you know how scary it is and I know how scary it is.
Mike 19:15
I do remember you and the group really stressing that - searching and finding is not the end-all but to be ready, also, to be really ready for it. Do what you can to be ready.
Joe 19:26
When I first got a picture of my mother from my cousins and I looked at the picture and my head kept saying - how could this be my mother? And I knew it was because we did some DNA testing with my cousins and so I knew it was my mother but my brain kept saying - how could that be my mother? It was so bizarre. I said I knew it was intellectually and the little voice said it - but it can't be.
Mike 19:49
That’s incredible. I was so happy for you when I saw that on Facebook.
Joe 19:53
For a whole day, it would seem like that all I did was say – oh, my God! Holy shit! Oh, my God! Holy shit! Because I couldn't really believe it and forty years of searching,
Mike 20:01
It was then you found out your name? Or - no, yeah, you found out from the cousins.
Joe 20:07
That's when I found out my real name - from my cousins. Yeah. Once I found my mother's name, then it was easy to figure it all out and my mother lived nine miles away from me my whole life, across the river. Yeah, had I but known.
Mike
Can you say your name?
Joe
My name was Robert Braverman and my mother's name was Ruth Braverman. Braverman, I think they pronounced it, and I love it. It makes it feel so good. Actually, I put out an edition of my first book in hardcover now and I put aka Robert Braverman on the cover. That was my last secret was to just put that out into the world. That felt so good to do that - a little scary but it really felt good.
Mike 20:50
Yeah. I guess it's more psychological. Putting that out there is not hurting anyone or it's not - family is going to say - oh, my God - he's outing us like for yourself. It's like - this is who I am, damn it.
Joe 21:03
Well, I'm doing it for me. There are some family members who might be upset. They might but if they go away from me, then they go away from me. I don't think that my sister, who I'm very close to, would be upset.
Mike
Your adoptive sister.
Joe
Yeah. Some of my adopted cousins might be upset and then I asked myself - the question is - how is it going to change the rest of my life? And it's not. The only thing this can do for me - I feel good doing this because it's authentic. It's the one thing that's hard for us to do is to be authentic.
Mike 21:33
Oh, boy. I'm either going to have nightmares tonight or sleep like a baby.
Joe 21:36
I hope it's sleep like a baby but, seriously, the question is - is it going to screw up the rest of my life? How could it screw up the rest of my life if somebody doesn't like what I've done? What are they going to do? Put me in jail? No, they might not talk to - I think, if somebody loves me, then they're going to want me to do what's best for me but I know way down deep there’s some fear that goes with that.
Mike 22:01
I feel like I have a tenuous connection with my father's side - well, definitely with my mother's side of the family but also with my father's side. It's so tricky. I went into this searching, especially for my dad's side of the family, saying - okay, I just want to know his name and see some photos and know some family history. I found all that and I found siblings and an uncle but I'm sort of being mandated to not contact anyone else. I had to push to connect with my uncle. I was forbidden to contact my uncle at first but I pushed and he was glad to know I existed. So, this idea of like - right now, I'm keeping myself a secret. Someone told me - well, now you're keeping yourself a secret.
Joe 22:40
I know that that's hard. I know that it is and they don't understand at all. They have no clue what's going on inside of us - why we need to be able to just say - this is my name; this is my father's name; this is my mother's name.
Mike 22:53
My mother was named Ludwig and she told me she named me Mark. So, I can say I’m Mark Ludwig and I like that name.
Joe
That's nice.
Mike
Thank you. I still don't say my father's last name.
Joe 23:02
Our mother is our first home. I don't know if you saw the thing I posted a couple of days ago on Facebook. Our mother - this is from Sun Gazing - our mother is our first home. That's where we come from. To me, that's the most important. Yeah, my father's name - it never really mattered to me. It’s going to sound strange but my first support group meeting, forty-something years ago, I heard somebody say something about their first father. I thought - oh, my God, I had a father. It never occurred to me because I never thought about a father growing up. It was only mother. I want my mommy. I had never thought about it. If I had, I guess I would have figured it out but I had a father. Holy cow! I never searched for my father. It never occurred to me to do that. My cousins found me. My cousin - my father's relatives found me or I never would have even known his name.
Mike 23:53
No one knew. None of the cousins. You were a total surprise.
Joe 23:57
Yeah, I certainly was. They treated me as a good surprise. Nobody asked me to be quiet about it, thank God.
Mike
Super.
Joe
Yeah, I'm lucky with that. I am. By the way, when you said your mother's name, you had this big smile on your face.
Mike [00:24:12]
Good.
Joe [00:24:12]
Or when you said your real was Mark, you had this big smile on your face. Yeah, of course.
Mike 24:19
All the family photos I have are on this wall. I have about twenty from both sides of the family. I mean, that's what I have. You know, everyone I have, I post. I forget I have people I look like. I have to remind myself.
Joe 24:29
What did to help me with that is right here where I'm pointing on the wall next to my computer monitor is a picture of my mother. Every morning I say – hi, mom - and it feels good to do it. We need that to help prove that we that we exist. You're right. Yeah, that can feel real good. What I do is I actually touch her hair on the photo because I read in one of my colleagues is that doing something symbolic can help make it even more real. Since I never got to touch her hair, now I can even though it's symbolic. It feels great.
Mike 25:02
Yeah, I like that. I'll show you this photo here. I like the hair in this photo. I'm showing my –
Joe [00:25:08]
Oh, that's wonderful.
Mike [00:25:09]
Isn't that great? A photo of my mother, for those listening.
Joe
It is. That's super.
Mike [00:25:13]
Great hair, huh?
Joe 25:15
Yeah, I'm not good at resemblances, so.
Mike 25:18
it's funny. I think as as she got older, I look more like her.
Joe 25:21
You know what? With my mother, it's exactly the same. In her young pictures, I don't but when she got to be near my age, I look just like her. I'm glad you have that picture of her. I will show you my mother's picture but I can't get the frame off the wall.
Mike 25:36
Take a picture. Oh, you know what I think I've - I've seen at least one photo of your mother. I think because you have it on Facebook.
Joe
I have one on Facebook of her holding a rose.
Mike
Ok, that’s the one I've seen that one.
Joe That's when she was, I would guess, twenty-twenty-five, something like that - somewhere around the age she had me but I don't think she looks like me. Other people say she does. I once told a group of psychiatrists that if I walked down the street and passed a twin brother, I wouldn't know I passed him because I have no way of knowing what I look like. We have enormous strength to survive this. I think it's a miracle that we survive. I have a psychiatrist friend who wrote a book called Being Adopted: Second Choice and he said to me he thinks it was divine intervention or none of us would have survived. And I tend to think that he's right.
Mike 26:27
I can't imagine the physical stress. It's physical and psychological stress. I remember distinctly at a lake once, a mother, kind of walking away from her infant for four seconds, and the kid had just unbelievable panic. And I thought – oh, my God. Suddenly, it just crystallized in my head what we all go through.
Joe 26:48
It's terror. We experience the death of our mothers. So we lose them, literally. We experience their death - that mommy here - mommy's gone. To a newborn baby, that's a death and we turn red; we howl with rage and we cry. We're terrified. Yeah, when we see something like that, like you just described, it can bring it into focus.
Mike 27:06
Yeah, I was told that I screamed and was red for two years.
Joe [00:27:11]
I believe it.
Mike
I feel like I've been screaming in some way my entire life, some sort of addictive behavior.
Joe 27:17
Have you watched Paul Sunderland's video on that?
Mike 27:20
I most definitely have. I've seen it a few times but I haven't seen it for a year or two. I actually have it written down that I need to watch it again.
Joe 27:29
Adoption and addiction. It's a spectacular video and he gets - how could we not have an addictive personality, after all we've been through? It shows in different ways.
Mike 27:39
I know when I found out my dad's name - maybe I wasn't sober enough at the time when I found out my mom's name - I was just kind of - oh, that's nice but when I found out my dad's name, which I never thought I'd find, it just rocked me and I think it's taken years to process.
Speaker 1 27:55
Oh, please. I'm still working on it and I mean that because it's still - I had seventy-something years of not knowing anything and then, all of a sudden, this new information. It takes a lot of time to absorb it. So, this is part of my own therapy is for me to touch her face every day and say hello every day. I talk out loud to her. She passed away, unfortunately, before I found her. So, I talk to her and sometimes I swear she talks back. So, it's comforting to me but, with my father's name, it just didn't do anything. Yeah, it's just not the same.
Mike 28:30
I think my adopted mother was very dominant and I really craved a strong man to protect me and I think that's why maybe.
Joe [00:28:37]
Yeah and we do need that.
Mike [00:28:41]
you look like your mom. Can you see you? You say you look like her. What about talents?
Joe 28:46
They say that I laugh and giggle like her. None of my cousins that I know are old enough to remember whether she had talents or not but I cannot imagine that I don't get my ability to paint from her or to sing from her. My father was an engineer. So, I have no doubt that I have that in my blood from him - my engineering-type brain but I think that my creative stuff must come from my mom. You know what? I can't prove it but I like believing it. So, what am I going to do? I've taken that and said - okay, that's, that's where it comes from. Thanks, Mom.
Mike
Oh, we've covered so much. What could I wrap up on?
Joe
Well, I'm going to say the name of my book then.
Mike
Good. Tell us.
Joe
Adoption Healing: A Path to Recovery. My website is www.adoptionhealing.com. And every night, I run a free support group 11 pm Eastern Time. So, I guess that's 4 pm – 5 pm your time for an hour and 15 minutes. It is free therapy every night of the week. Go to www.adoptionhealing.com and there is a link for it or you can email me from there. There are people who take naps in Europe - taking naps so they can come into the chat at five in the morning. It's there. It's just meeting other people. There are people who come in from Australia, from China, from Canada and from different countries in Europe. That's a nice way to make some connections.
Mike 30:17
That was Joe. He is a warrior and he's still at it out there, fighting for adoptee rights. I don't know if I'd be here if it weren't for him and his group back in the 90s. If you liked this show, please rate, subscribe. Why not write a review? It could be short, a couple sentences, maybe just one. Tell your friends. Get more people listening to this - more visibility and we can reach more adoptees and people in general. Visit the Patreon at www.patreon.com/secret_son.com. See you next time.