Tom advocates for adoptee rights and shares his personal experiences about being adopted. He was adopted as an infant and things went so well his parents decided to adopt two older boys when Tom was two years old. Their adoption is where his trouble started. Life became chaotic in their home because the older boys were difficult for his parents to control. Tom was feeling sidelined. Sadly, one of the older boys sexually abused him resulting in issues he’s dealt with most of his life. Searching to repair his past he sought counseling, connected with his biological mother, and tracked down his biological father. But Tom was never quite able to gain the sense of belonging he was searching for.

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Tom (00:03):

You know, I knew more and more it was him. Wrote a third letter and basically said, look, I'm not after your money. I'm not looking to disturb your family, but I, I need this for my own sanity. I need to, I need to know and, and I'd like to meet you if I can.

Voices (00:25):

Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

Damon (00:36):

This is Who Am I, Really? A podcast about adoptees that have located and connected with their biological family members. Hey, it's Damon and on the show today, I'm joined by Tom. Tom advocates for adoptee rights and shares his personal experiences about being adopted online. He shared with me that he was adopted as an infant and things went so well that his parents decided to adopt two older boys when he was two, but that's when the trouble started. He says, life became chaotic in their home because the other boys were difficult for his parents to control leaving Tom feeling sidelined, resulting in issues he dealt with his entire life ever since. Searching to repair his past, he sought counseling, connected with his biological mother and tracked down his biological father, but Tom was never quite able to gain the sense of belonging he was searching for.

Damon (01:29):

Tom, thanks for taking time to talk to me this morning. I appreciate it.

Tom (01:33):

Absolutely.

Damon (01:34):

Now I've been seeing some of the thought leaders that are out there and your name continues to come up as somebody who's advocating for a lot of adoptee rights and you're a prolific writer about your own feelings and your own story.

Tom (01:48):

Oh, not a problem at all. I do the writing to try to help others and we'll see how that goes.

Damon (01:54):

Yeah, yeah, it's helpful for me to read some of your thoughts and some of your experiences. I appreciate the fact that you sort of consistently write about different themes from forgiveness to consideration of the father and a biological family and you know, so many other topics. So thank you for your leadership in this space as well.

Tom (02:13):

I appreciate that.

Damon (02:14):

Sure. So I would love for you to take me back to the beginning. Tell me a little bit about your life as an adoptee. As a young child, what it was like in your family, your community and uh, and how things were growing up for you.

Tom (02:28):

Sure. Well, to start, I think it started out well and was well intended. I was adopted at the age of three months back in 1971. I guess I was my parents pride and joy. Things went well for them. In fact, so well that they decided that they were going to adopt two older boys, uh, when I was two years old. So those boys came in, they were two and four years older than, than me. And immediately the house became chaotic. It wasn't really clear what was happening with them and their foster home, they were actually in the same foster home. They were not biological brothers, but they came as a package to us.

Damon (03:15):

Interesting. So just for clarity real quick, you were the sole child in your family until these new adoptees came in. So you went from being number one and the, the sole focus to like being number three, you're now the youngest, is that right?

Tom (03:33):

Exactly. Which was very, very odd. It really kind of turned my world upside down.

Damon (03:40):

I can imagine.

Tom (03:41):

So, you know, life became chaotic. I do remember, as a matter of fact, I think I remember on the first day that uh, my middle brother complaining about the food and you know, wanting to go back to where he was and things were just very, became very uncertain almost overnight. Time went on a little bit and as we got a little older, it became more and more chaotic.

Damon (04:10):

What does that mean for you?

Tom (04:10):

Oh, for me it just means that I never knew when somebody was, when one of the older two was going to blow up at something, cause trouble with my parents.

Damon (04:24):

Tom remembers his middle brother battling with his parents every week, standing away from the family during church services and reigniting feuds with them once they left. He would run away from them when it was time for the family to go somewhere, then reappear inside the house even though their home had been locked. He spread his own garbage on his bedroom floor and he stole stuff from Tom's room. Finally, Tom's parents had had enough. They made plans for him to have an alternative living arrangement elsewhere.

Damon (04:51):

Wow. That must have been really hard.

Tom (04:52):

It was difficult. Yeah, it was very difficult. My older brother, Frank, who I thought was on my side but was also very unpredictable, uh, at the age of 11, started sexually abusing me. I guess I was in a position where I felt like nobody was paying attention to me and he was, and obviously that was his grooming technique. Um, well, luckily at one point John was home visiting and he peeked into the room and saw what was going on and I think that scared Frank away. So luckily it stopped. It stopped. Yeah. So even though it happened on multiple occasions, thankfully it ended up stopping. Um, but, you know, I, I never knew the impact that it had on me until many years later.

Damon (05:44):

How do you mean?

Tom (05:44):

I just went through life. I went through the motions, you know, I think I was, I was depressed, but I, you know, I didn't know what normal was, so I just thought that was normal. Um, you know, I was not confident about dating and I was, um, you know, I did well in school, which was the plus for me. Um, but I couldn't, I couldn't wait to get out of there. I couldn't wait to graduate high school so I could get out and go to college.

Damon (06:13):

Be away from your home.

Tom (06:14):

And be away. Yeah. And, um, but still I thought everything was normal. Um, I thought, you know, I thought I just thought that was life. And eventually when I ended up getting married, um, I thought it was expected of me to have him as my best man. And that's what I did. And it was, you know, and then my, and then the turmoil inside I may started getting stronger and I started becoming more upset and confused about life. What was going on? I guess three or so years after that, when he went to get married, you know, he wanted me to be his best man and I just basically did everything I could just to get through that time. And then I lost it and, um, and had to go get help. And I went to get therapy, which was basically something I didn't want to do. There was a stigma attached to it. I thought there was something wrong with me if I needed to go and do that. But thankfully I did do that because it basically saved me for the lack of a better term.

Damon (07:18):

Yeah. There's a lot of people who feel like they are broken or that they're, like you said, there's a stigma attached to mental health when in fact it really should be your health and I would love to for people to just think, don't think of it as there's something wrong with me. Think of it as an investment in your own health. Help isn't just physical. It's mental as well. So how did therapy help you, if you don't mind me asking?

Tom (07:45):

It took a long time. 16 years or so in therapy. You know, I thought that... I had many problems with relationships. I, you know, I got married way too young. You know, it's, it's tough to reconcile that internally to say, you know, you were in a much different spot when you decided to do this. And, um, that's been a struggle for me. The therapy really helped. One of the first orders of business was to face my brother. I basically had to first face my parents. They had no idea what had gone on, you know. So what I did was brought them up to my house, worked with my therapist to put together some language and decide how I was going to handle it and basically sat them down. And you know, they were devastated. And thankfully, thankfully they, um, supported me 100%, believed me, which was huge.

Damon (08:48):

Yeah, that is huge.

Tom (08:49):

And you know, so it was, it was a crazy time.

Damon (08:54):

Ooh. So adoption goes from being positive experience as a young, young guy to an abusive experience and your parents didn't know that this was going on. So do you recall at all how they comforted you in the light of all of the other turmoil that they could see in being an adoptee and being their son? Do you remember how your parents tried to help you feel comfortable as an adoptee in your family? What kinds of things did they say and do?

Tom (09:25):

On the positive side, they were, they treated me as their son, you know, they had always told me that I was adopted. They never tried to hide that fact, which I think I think is key.

Damon (09:35):

I...