Finding Wholeness Within With Andrew Glen

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of Thriving Adoptees podcast. Today I'm delighted to be joined

[00:00:07] by Andrew Dwang looking forward to our conversation today, Andrew. Yeah me too, Simon.

[00:00:13] Yeah always into the time in your company. You're a star, right? So this ladies'

[00:00:18] engendment is the closest I've ever been to an Adoptee geographically to do the podcast.

[00:00:27] We've done podcasts with people from Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, all through

[00:00:37] Zoom but Andrew's only like about 12 miles away from me. Which is great isn't it?

[00:00:42] Which is better than virtual coffee. It's better than virtual coffee and yeah we did meet up for

[00:00:47] a proper coffee last time. So what does healing mean to you Andrew? Well that's a massive

[00:00:57] question isn't it? Yes. I was kind of contemplating what we might talk about this afternoon.

[00:01:04] And I think the first step on the journey of healing was getting some understanding. So

[00:01:15] I think everybody's journey is their own and it's very personal. But for me,

[00:01:24] as a young man certainly, I kind of bought into the whole narrative that you know I was lucky and

[00:01:34] special and I'd been chosen and how amazing it was that I'd been fortunate enough to be adopted.

[00:01:44] And then probably in my early mid fifties I kind of started to think a bit about

[00:01:56] the plans that I could see that I'd lived or had expressed themselves in my life and

[00:02:05] start to see that some of those were not as positive or as healthy as they might have been.

[00:02:11] And I went to talk to somebody to a therapist and as we started to

[00:02:21] unpack some of that stuff out what turned out to be quite a superficial level because it was

[00:02:28] the symptoms really rather than the cause. We eventually started to dig down and we started to

[00:02:34] think about or talk about or explore the fact that I'm adopted and the impact that that

[00:02:45] process has had on me and my life really. So you know, healing's a massive topic but I think

[00:02:56] the most important part is at the start is certainly to get that awareness and that understanding

[00:03:04] that there can be trauma associated with being relinquished, that it's not

[00:03:13] the positive altruistic wonderful process that you know the popular narrative positions it as.

[00:03:22] But actually it's very damaging, very challenging both on and from an emotional perspective

[00:03:32] and I guess from the way it influences your life, your decisions, your relationships

[00:03:42] but lots and lots of things.

[00:03:51] It's definitely that emotional stuff that's definitely one of the levels.

[00:03:59] Yeah, I think one of the concepts that I find really helpful is that adoption creates a strong

[00:04:17] a strong desire to survive. You know we are all adoptees are all survivors. We've all survived

[00:04:24] a traumatic experience being separated from our birth moms and having that bond broken. In my case

[00:04:36] you know I was taken when I was 10 years old so very early on and

[00:04:46] and your mind can figure itself to look after you not necessarily in kind of positive ways

[00:04:56] and not necessarily in kind of healthy ways and natural fact in lots of ways in quite painful

[00:05:02] ways but nevertheless, you know we become survivors and we're given a set of skills,

[00:05:13] a set of tools, there's a say not all of them positive but almost a set of superpowers which

[00:05:20] then influence our lives and which we can then then use. And one of the things that I think

[00:05:26] to really double edge saw is hypervigilance right so hypervigilance is that that sense of

[00:05:36] in security that wanting to better understand to lift the corner of the carpet up to look at what's

[00:05:50] what's hidden to not trust essentially. And in one way that's not great. In another way professionally

[00:06:02] the fact that I challenge things, think about things in a different way

[00:06:09] that hypervigilance drives me the extra mile or the extra five miles to cases. Actually professionally

[00:06:19] it gives you an edge because you see the world differently or slightly differently or

[00:06:23] will significantly differently to other people and you become less conventional

[00:06:29] in your approach to things which in the right circumstances

[00:06:36] is effectively being more entrepreneurial. Yeah. To what extent can you be, I see the double edge

[00:06:45] sort thing for myself, I see it, I actually see it from my dad, my adoptive dad,

[00:06:54] who wasn't adopted right. And yet there's a lack of relaxation, there's a lack of peace

[00:07:07] in that hypervigilance so if I can get my head around it you can have hypervigilance

[00:07:19] about survival from a physical perspective and you can have hypervigilance from a business

[00:07:32] perspective and a business survival perspective. And that isn't it from my experience

[00:07:42] not a particularly peaceful relaxing place to be so the business survival becomes as critical

[00:07:56] as the physical survival. That's what it felt like for me, it wasn't like that for you, was it different?

[00:08:03] Is it different? I mean I know it was taking a lot of energy

[00:08:09] because you're kind of always on aren't you? And I don't know whether people would be able to relate

[00:08:17] to this but I've been awake at three o'clock in the morning more times than I've not been

[00:08:24] and it's not been, not always been because I've been out having a film. That's been the minority

[00:08:30] it's been because my brain was worrying some sort of real or imagined problem

[00:08:39] as like a terrier, you know you kind of get enough sleep and then it goes you know what three

[00:08:48] o'clock in the morning this is when we process stuff, this is when we worry about stuff, this is

[00:08:53] then when we do the analysis this is when we try and pull all these threads together and make

[00:08:59] sensitive things. And yeah it isn't peaceful, it's horrible, it's intrusive, it's something that's

[00:09:12] very difficult to learn to control. And it's a consequence of those hyper vigilant processes

[00:09:23] that are going on I think all the time and until you get to a point where

[00:09:32] you've done enough work, done enough healing that they just calm down. Yeah

[00:09:41] and I guess been transparent and kind of candid about this

[00:09:48] I was joking with people that there's a line in a song by Eric Clapton's thing and it goes I

[00:09:56] was born with a raging thirst and a hunger to be free and that's described a lot of my life

[00:10:03] and part of the kind of self-medication, the use of alcohol or any other use of alcohol,

[00:10:08] never done the drugs thing. I think he's about trying to calm that

[00:10:13] out that anxious, that painful, that hyper vigilant part of your mind, the amygdala that's in

[00:10:22] in constant a constant state of alert. Yeah and what's

[00:10:31] what's been astonishing for me I haven't had a drink now for three months

[00:10:35] and I was assuming stopping drinking would be like a really big deal but it is

[00:10:44] I just have no desire to drink because I'm more peaceful now when I don't feel the need to kind

[00:10:51] of mask everything so it's a I think it's a really important thing to find a way of getting

[00:10:58] a handle on to understand that the process, the adoption process is set you up to be a survivor

[00:11:08] but what does that mean and how is that impact you and what strategies did that little babies

[00:11:15] mind, that pre-verbal babies mind come up with to say actually this is how I'm going to look after

[00:11:22] you and sometimes the pain that comes from that, like the anxiety, the stress it's your body's

[00:11:32] way if kind of saying I want to take care of you but it isn't taking care of you in a nice

[00:11:38] comforting, nurturing way. It fails, it fails uncomfortable and being able to deal with that

[00:11:53] has been a very important part of the healing. As the not drinking is that in fact influenced you

[00:12:04] sleep often? Yeah I sleep like a baby no, I sleep the best I think I've probably ever slept

[00:12:14] and I do without making myself out to be over kind of over virtuous. I take good care of myself,

[00:12:24] you know I'm in the gym three times a week with a trainer, I'm careful about what I eat not obsessive

[00:12:31] you know it takes supplementary visit a physio every couple of weeks to make sure I'm kind of

[00:12:36] limmer and tuned up and I've spent a lot of time in therapy and there are all things that are

[00:12:43] about building a kind of package of self care around me that I think helped me sustain myself

[00:12:54] as I was fighting that battle with those inner demons, those dreadful feelings, the trauma

[00:13:05] that was set up all those years ago. Yeah I feel the sleepless thing, sleeplessness

[00:13:12] thing for you and with you and most of mine is about trying to stop bad things happening business

[00:13:25] white. It's been like I was going to say proactive defensiveness but it's you know the mind can't

[00:13:33] actually solve a problem that is only of its own making. It's very my mind was very anticipating

[00:13:45] anticipatory and how are we going to avoid this terrible financial year that's my AECI go through a

[00:13:59] cycle where I would get most stressed in the last three months of the financial year because

[00:14:08] did it just had to come through before that year end and that's happened to me. When I think of

[00:14:17] when I think of stress and trauma I think of business being for me being a very long term

[00:14:30] like decades, multiple decades since midnight. I think of that as being a constant low level

[00:14:42] quarter of emotional shit and hatred and anxiety at a constant low level and then

[00:14:52] and then boosting you know getting particularly pronounced in those last three months of the

[00:14:59] financial year. And if I look at the emotional, the conscious emotional, Edom, a adoption

[00:15:10] trauma shit, I think of really short very acute.

[00:15:20] It's far more painful and far more short lived in terms of my conscious awareness of all my

[00:15:29] conscious awareness of the fear around rejection and feeling that my birth mother didn't love me

[00:15:40] enough like real crisis moments that lasted 10 or 20 seconds. Interesting. How does

[00:15:51] how does yeah, how do you stack? How does your stack to that?

[00:16:02] I mean two or three thoughts. The first thing that sprang to mind was I don't know if you read a

[00:16:08] book called The Chimp Paradox by Stephen Peters. Yes. And in one of the concepts that

[00:16:16] that Stephen puts forward is that you know how you have this chimp who's rigging havoc in your mind.

[00:16:24] But it can create evidence for the unrealistic fears that it plants in your mind.

[00:16:37] So it's like here's something to dread and this is why you should dread it you know because

[00:16:42] you're going to be killed by a yellow car because there are yellow cars on the road

[00:16:46] and you've seen a crash involving a yellow car and it just puts all this stuff together

[00:16:53] and and kind of backs up irrationally backs up this fear that it's put inside you.

[00:17:03] I mean on the business front, I don't know about you. Up until I hope none of my team

[00:17:11] ever see this but up until five or six years ago I was absolutely workaholic probably four years

[00:17:16] ago and just work was all about validating myself really. You know how could I challenge

[00:17:28] myself or my business or my team to do something even more impossible. It's so that when we achieved

[00:17:38] it there was that that kind of validation but there was never any any satisfaction.

[00:17:44] So I can completely relate to the kind of anxieties around business but I think it's for me

[00:17:50] it was just another manifestation of that insecurity that comes from that special gift of being adopted.

[00:18:01] Yeah.

[00:18:08] The one the story that came to my mind when I was thinking about non-adoptes take on this was

[00:18:14] my dance actually and it was probably 15 years after he retired maybe and we were out for lunch

[00:18:23] and we were talking about this sort of stuff like

[00:18:31] anticipating the shit that can happen in business.

[00:18:35] So we had it off and shit is going to happen in business.

[00:18:39] Yes, that's the business or words.

[00:18:45] And he said well I saw that as a good thing because it kept me on my toes

[00:18:55] and I said well yeah and it never let you relax today.

[00:19:07] And a tear came to his eye.

[00:19:12] And that isn't the regular side of my band it was that not until nothing like that you know

[00:19:22] that was 15 years so he'd got some distance between it and maybe he'd seen that.

[00:19:30] I guess I didn't really know why I was sharing that other than this question in my mind

[00:19:43] and you said business anxiety is a manifestation of insecurity

[00:19:55] to do down to being adopted.

[00:19:59] So I gave you an example from my dad that said right this is also a this is another adopted guy

[00:20:10] that has the same stuff and I think so I think for me the 50 million dollar question

[00:20:18] that has been a problem at the back of my mind for the last 20 years is what it is my business anxiety

[00:20:28] was my business anxiety was that actually as you say my manifestation of being adopted or was it

[00:20:37] just how business is and there's also a level of something happened to me on the back of

[00:20:52] the conversation with a coachy type lady who well I know she's not like coachy type lady she is

[00:20:58] a coach who had achieved huge amounts in business as in a corporate high flyer

[00:21:11] an HR director of one of the top 20 companies in the UK and then a consultant charging

[00:21:20] incredible amounts as a freelancer.

[00:21:23] So suddenly the nose about business stuff as well as the deeper emotional stuff and trauma

[00:21:31] stuff and she said well you'll never know Simon and we'll never know we'll never will never

[00:21:40] able to hang the hawk on one thing. No it's the it's the degree isn't it I'm sure I'm sure nearly

[00:21:50] everybody in business feels a level of stress or concern at certain points in time the level

[00:21:59] of a nation when things are going well but I think for me work was just so important you know because

[00:22:10] as I said earlier it was kind of validating for me to be able to demonstrate that I was kind of

[00:22:19] with something. Yeah I was coming at it more from a well interesting you say elated when things

[00:22:30] are going well so that I finally had a good year and it didn't make me happy and therefore and

[00:22:37] and that opened a whole new that opened a whole new path so so that was the the biggest thing for

[00:22:44] me on the back of that yeah and I get that too because they kind of the dopamine hits become

[00:22:53] less and less effective you know unless long lasting.

[00:23:02] Yeah I get that yeah and can I switch it switch it back to the relationship stuff

[00:23:12] yeah it's not everybody is into the business stuff like you and I were you know you said something

[00:23:21] before we hit the record button about no no longer seeking somebody to save me I think is that

[00:23:32] what you said yeah yeah I've spent a lot of my life compelled not to be alone

[00:23:45] right to compelled to have somebody to be in a relationship and as a consequence

[00:23:55] and I've made some bad and very bad choices in terms of people that I've had relationships with

[00:24:06] and they've been great some of them have been less grown but I guess the positive thing is

[00:24:14] and I see them all is all as a gift because I've learned something from from all of them so I'm

[00:24:20] not I'm not entirely negative about it but I think you know whatever people used to say where you

[00:24:26] you know you've got you've got to find whatever it is you need within yourself I could I couldn't

[00:24:35] I mean I understood it yeah I understood the concept but I could never truly relate to it

[00:24:42] and yet now I've got through a kind of peaceful place where it is just me on the dog

[00:24:47] um

[00:24:51] you know that that is just such a big part of the answer

[00:24:57] just such a big part of the answer that you have to be able to take care of yourself you

[00:25:03] have to be able to soothe in a child that in a baby perhaps you have to be able to

[00:25:12] to to make them feel safe secure loved and when you do it just flows through the rest of you

[00:25:23] and you're not you've not got other versions of you younger less emotionally mature

[00:25:32] less developed less healed versions of you driving your emotions and potentially driving

[00:25:39] your baby and I think that's that for me has been been really profound and it it came over time

[00:25:49] um and I didn't I didn't always recognise the steps and the movement um but I've worked with

[00:25:58] some great people some really great people who've helped me uh helped me a lot and you know what

[00:26:06] once you can get to a point where you can take care of yourself then it's

[00:26:15] you relate to the world in a completely different way because you're not desperate for

[00:26:23] anything external you know those relationships that you have the friendships that you have

[00:26:29] all the rest of it are fantastic but you're not kind of desperate for them

[00:26:35] they're not going to be the answer because the answer is from within yeah so the the word that popped up

[00:26:44] um for me to draw a couple of strands of things that you said to your other is craving

[00:26:51] you know I was thinking about craving you know craving craving a beer yeah yeah and and and

[00:26:57] craving uh a relationship and then you know after the back of the back of that you know we think

[00:27:04] I'm thinking craving I'm thinking um um I'm thinking of desperation and then uh and uh and then I'm

[00:27:16] comparing that with the opposite state which feels more like peace

[00:27:27] yeah I'd I mean it's interesting isn't it we go we go through all these stages in life anyway

[00:27:34] I think there's there's kind of lots of change programmed into us um whether it's

[00:27:44] you know if you if you thought to share enough to have to have your own your own family

[00:27:52] first time you meet your your child might it just flips everything on its head and

[00:27:58] and you know in terms of the the hierarchy of need you go right back to the start again it's like

[00:28:05] you know how can I make sure I've got food shelter warm how can I take care of this baby all of that

[00:28:11] you know how can I get a bigger car how can I get a better job all of that stuff kind of almost goes out

[00:28:15] the window so there's all of this I think there's all this programming and I just wonder with so many

[00:28:21] adoptees coming out of the fog kind of mid late 40s 50s I just wonder whether there's a point in your

[00:28:29] life where there's some sort of embedded process that starts to to um starts to work

[00:28:41] it in terms of this stuff starts to make you question starts to to to make you feel differently

[00:28:50] about it yeah I was thinking as you say now I think drawing the parallels with the

[00:29:01] the have you heard this word cat cat child it's the opposite of a child that's adopted a cat

[00:29:09] child well amazing the jargon amazing um you know I'm thinking the the kind of like that's

[00:29:19] the the 40s and 50s is where the mid life crisis happens so you know to what extent does the

[00:29:28] does the adoption play into that does that turbo charge does that turbo charge the mid life crisis

[00:29:37] or is that a hook to hand the mid life crisis on yeah or is it we'll never know you know well

[00:29:43] all does the mid life crisis just you know when you kind of stop and re-examine your life and say

[00:29:49] what have I achieved am I happy you know where have I got to maybe maybe part of that subconsciously

[00:29:57] or conscious that it is like oh you know how do I kind of feel about being adopted what impact does

[00:30:03] that had on on my life but you're right it's and it's I hadn't thought of this it's an interesting

[00:30:12] um conjunction isn't it really that you know coming out of the fog is around the time that people

[00:30:21] would have a mid life crisis and go out and buy their pool show whatever it is yeah trade the

[00:30:28] wife in for a younger model they this the hooks that we have stuff on so

[00:30:38] yeah it's so important and I I don't know if I said this on the podcast recently but I did

[00:30:46] send it I did find myself saying it a lot a few months ago you know that

[00:30:50] but having come from a world of um business development to personal development to

[00:31:05] spiritually to you with three three steps but but back a step right having come from a world of

[00:31:13] personal development and to do with entrepreneurial success and you know your achievements and

[00:31:24] your beliefs about what you can achieve and and this world that is satiated that world is is

[00:31:31] satiated with this beliefs thing you know and specifically the self limiting beliefs you know

[00:31:38] and these these people trying to sell us stuff and they they they pick on our self limiting you know

[00:31:47] they they introduce some jeopardy and some um they introduce some jeopardy and they

[00:31:53] sew some seeds of doubt are your self limiting beliefs holding you back do you know I mean

[00:31:59] like and I've seen so much of this where you go you you go for uh you you're looking to develop a new skill

[00:32:10] um and the the the the person that is trying to sell you on that developed on that his his or her

[00:32:19] skill development package has to build it up you know the skill is just that that's just an entry point

[00:32:28] but now I'm going to sew some seeds on you about your self limiting beliefs so they've got a bigger problem

[00:32:35] to to they've got a big so we have got a bigger problem the client the potential purchaser has

[00:32:40] got and they've sewed some doubts of belief and we think yes well this is I I thought that I

[00:32:48] I just thought did that I need more um uh that you know a better click through rate on my advertising

[00:32:56] but now I see that it's it's it's to do with my self limiting beliefs and and and so

[00:33:03] and so the the the seller has has a bigger uh a bigger offering and that for a a bigger price ticket

[00:33:14] and yeah and you feel more compelled to buy don't you? Yeah you feel more compelled to buy

[00:33:19] but this so this self limiting beliefs is the currency of that it's the it's a it's a basis for

[00:33:26] the currency of law of business development and stuff and yet we we don't we don't see any

[00:33:35] we don't see anything about beliefs in in the adult tea world i'm not what i can

[00:33:42] that not that i can you know point point my finger at you know when when they say

[00:33:48] people say to us um you know this that one of the biggest challenges that we have

[00:33:54] you know you've talked about it from um I talked about it from worry about business you've

[00:33:58] talked about you know validation from business um is is this feeling that we're not the feeling

[00:34:05] we're not good enough but isn't that a belief that's a belief right so people say okay we we feel

[00:34:14] we're not good we're not good enough and it's all down to the trauma okay so we've got to get

[00:34:19] we've got to get to the bottom of the trauma and then he says ah self limiting belief how can you

[00:34:25] bust the self limiting belief nobody says that and as i'm waffling on here i'm just wondering

[00:34:31] whether making any sense at all but um what i don't know i don't even know really know what my question is

[00:34:37] other than um do you do you see this belief thing uh is that just me

[00:34:45] um well i definitely know what you're talking about and i think i think

[00:34:50] those survival instincts those survival strategies i think are a part of that

[00:35:01] i think they're like a confidence that that capability to trust

[00:35:08] that those types of those types of feelings are in you know in the very essence they're

[00:35:18] they're limiting are they you know they if you if you're not confident in you

[00:35:28] if you don't if you're not comfortable with you if you're not kind of peaceful with you if you

[00:35:35] if you don't think that

[00:35:38] yeah

[00:35:40] your worth as much as you really should be um yeah that's kind of that's kind of a massive impact

[00:35:51] quick plug i've got to do a quick plug so the the reason ladies and judgment that the the

[00:35:57] thriving adoptive logo is a diamond is uh it is is a way of putting our uh a way of

[00:36:07] exemplifying our worth and our self-esteem in in it's in its brilliance so

[00:36:16] so i'm going to give you the intro

[00:36:21] working well together that's last time yeah

[00:36:26] so we've looked at healing probably on three on on on three levels so far we've looked at the

[00:36:35] the kind of the the emotional stuff we've looked at i don't

[00:36:43] business self-worthy type stuff and we've looked at it in terms of

[00:36:48] relationing your your no longer seeking somebody to

[00:36:56] to save me to save you

[00:37:01] so what so we've got three it's three levels of healing yeah um emotional

[00:37:09] self-esteem stuff and relational what what other

[00:37:15] hooks what are the levels do you see healing

[00:37:26] some of the things that were most profound for me on on my journey i worked with an amazing

[00:37:33] therapist who created a relationship for me with my birth mom now my birth mom's dead she

[00:37:42] she died in 2022 at the ripe old age of 99 i never got to to meet her because i only

[00:37:48] only managed to get into kind of getting a birth certificate original birth certificate and then

[00:37:56] only very recently about a month ago i've finally got my adoption file after after two years

[00:38:06] but during the therapy i was guided to create i guess a relationship to see this

[00:38:15] this woman my my mom my birth mom as a person and to kind of understand

[00:38:26] what she might have felt how she might have responded how she how she managed through that

[00:38:34] that process and that was that was really important so she registered my birth i'm

[00:38:43] Andrew Christopher Glenn she registered my birth as martin groan donna here and i've got a

[00:38:49] birth certificate um with martin groan donna here and despite the fact i think this i'm what

[00:38:57] i'm going to say now i think he's so blindingly obvious but i never thought about it

[00:39:03] until this particular therapist pointed this out to me my birth mom went to the trouble

[00:39:12] on giving me a first name in the middle name she didn't do that she didn't care about me

[00:39:20] and that's an example of how we can put together the fact that

[00:39:27] i was loved by her and wanted by her but circumstances meant that she couldn't keep me

[00:39:36] and it must have been a torturous torturous decision for her

[00:39:44] and having that having that understanding that relationship with

[00:39:54] her or the imaginary hair as she was at the time was really powerful in helping me start to kind of

[00:40:01] move forward within this within this journey of of hailing

[00:40:12] so yeah that's another that's a kind of another big step another big hook

[00:40:17] because i think we all well i'm not going to say we all i certainly have found

[00:40:25] and the lack of identity you know that wanting to understand who i really am where i came from

[00:40:31] whom mom and dad were what the circumstances were

[00:40:36] i've really struggled to get access to that and to get my file and it's not because anybody was

[00:40:42] trying to be particularly difficult it's just nobody gives a damn about adoption he's really

[00:40:48] and there's no sudden resources you know i had to what i put an application to get my file i had to

[00:40:54] wait six months while they appointed a social worker to manage the process because they didn't

[00:41:00] have anybody in place and when he came on board he works two days away it's like there's no

[00:41:05] there's no money there's no resources it's stuff is practically very very difficult

[00:41:11] but we should as adoptees if we want be able to get easy access to those things so we can start

[00:41:19] to build that picture and start to understand and stop fantasizing or worrying about

[00:41:26] you know my adoptive parents had always told me as it turns out they'd always told me the truth

[00:41:32] right so i'd grown up really knowing what my background was but i never believed them

[00:41:41] because i thought well you know if i came from some disastrous set of circumstances nobody would tell

[00:41:46] you that would they then make up some some nice saccharine story so i never truly believed them

[00:41:53] although as it turns out there will be an absolutely genuine analogy i've seen credible

[00:42:00] yeah i mean incredible in terms of the creativity of their human mind

[00:42:05] yeah it sounds like a it's like a double on the left isn't it i don't even know what the

[00:42:12] i don't even know no term fine i don't know i can't that can't be the truth it's

[00:42:20] too weird it can't be the truth because i you know i wouldn't be worth that you know i must have

[00:42:25] come from some some much more desperate set of circumstances or on on pleasant set of circumstances

[00:42:32] so for me understanding that has been has been a really really foundational

[00:42:40] yeah i guess in in the journey and did it change your relationship did it change your

[00:42:47] your your relationship in your head with your adoptive parents because you realized that they had told

[00:42:54] you the truth no not really i mean i said they're both long gone yeah um well long gone my doctor

[00:43:05] mum died at news eve 2019 and in my doctor dad 20 19 a bit years ago

[00:43:14] um but if i'm if i'm being honest i never felt connected to my adopted mum ever not not as a little boy

[00:43:30] not as not as a teenager not as a man never and i really liked my doctor dad

[00:43:38] but in the same way that i would have liked kind of the guy who lived next door if he was kind

[00:43:42] of interested in a nice bloke and you know played cricket with me and stuff like that and i never

[00:43:48] felt i belonged i never felt i should be should have been in that family never felt it was

[00:43:55] never felt it was where i should be really so um i respect them for for doing what they kind of

[00:44:05] thought was the the right thing and and trying to do the right right things with myself

[00:44:10] um and there's no there's no kind of animosity really um did you crave the given what you just said

[00:44:24] did you crave the truth about the truth about the story and uh the origin story did you

[00:44:33] crave that yeah i did eventually um you know as i said the kind of earlier on in this

[00:44:40] i kind of bought the conventional narrative for a long time um you know how lucky i was and

[00:44:48] and you know how special we all are to have been chosen right you know um as opposed to how

[00:44:55] challenged we all are by the fact that we've actually been given up my birth month

[00:45:00] for whatever for whatever reason um so yeah i bought all that i thought adoption was an amazing thing

[00:45:07] and and now i'm you know 110 percent against it so we hold in those two things at the same time

[00:45:15] no no so so we've kind of we talked about a kind of attitudinal progression over time

[00:45:22] and it was only when i got to my midlife crisis or to to that that kind of turning point

[00:45:35] in my middle years that i felt the need to understand why my life was on the path that it was

[00:45:46] and and had why i'd taken the journey that i'd taken uh why the patterns were there why things kept

[00:45:53] repeating themselves and and not delivering great outcomes for me and from there you know as i said

[00:46:01] earlier then i started to kind of unpick it and and then dived into adoption you know feet first

[00:46:10] like read everything i could possibly read started with the primal wound uh i remember weeping

[00:46:16] buckets over that um read everything i could listen to everything i could you used to spend time

[00:46:24] every day with podcasts listening to to kind of other other adoptees and and just trying to get

[00:46:32] that understanding um because i had such an appetite such a hunger to want to make sense of

[00:46:40] of what had happened to me but then you know i've said it a couple of times that

[00:46:46] i've had some amazing help on on the journey i mean you're just just phenomenal

[00:46:51] helping your journey and i think

[00:46:56] you know get get into the point where

[00:47:02] where you've got a kind of decent understanding of the kind of the potential therapeutic

[00:47:06] modalities um i mean EMDR was an absolute game changer for me it's you know if there's a silver

[00:47:15] bullet for trauma it's EMDR in my labement opinion and an experience it's incredible

[00:47:26] I've achieved more in probably half a dozen sessions of ER

[00:47:35] EMDR than in years i've talking it's just been so powerful such an amazing amazing revelation

[00:47:43] yeah because it rewires things

[00:47:47] when did you get your file do you say um about a month ago so that was

[00:47:58] because we met bipes six weeks ago two months ago something like that yeah so

[00:48:03] so the original um the original kind of output from the process was it was a sheet never half

[00:48:11] of a four word document with a with a kind of summary on it and you know from that i was able to

[00:48:18] identify my mom i was able to um you know go to the public records and found i've got two half

[00:48:28] sisters um and i've got mum lived or you know piece bits and bits and pieces put bits and pieces

[00:48:35] together which was really helpful but but it left me with it left me with loads of questions so i

[00:48:42] kind of went back to my social worker the the chap who worked for pack P.A.C and i said but i'll

[00:48:48] you know thanks have some much they still great but i want a file you know i've still got still

[00:48:53] got lots of questions you know it here's a great example my mom registered my birth mom registered

[00:49:01] as martin graved on her here i was born on the 14th of november she registered it

[00:49:07] on the 24th of november so ten days later and it was the same day but i was taken by my adoptive parents

[00:49:18] so there's clearly a story there isn't that that she's registering me registering my birth

[00:49:23] with the name that she wants me to have on the day that i'm physically being removed

[00:49:30] and and taken to you know where was going to become home for the next 16 years or so

[00:49:37] so i wanted to i wanted to kind of better understand

[00:49:44] what was kind of going on there yeah there was um

[00:49:51] there was a reference in this in this a4 summary now to my birth mom not agreeing she was from

[00:49:58] middle spirit not agreeing to do the paperwork in middle spirit but insisting on coming back to

[00:50:03] a whole to do it which i presume is was when she registered my birth and it's like you know

[00:50:09] kind of what's all that about so and i'm not asking you to speculate because i'm an atby but it's

[00:50:17] you know you end up with all of these questions yeah but did the you had to cheat in a half of

[00:50:24] a4 and then then yes for the file did did did the getting the file fill in fill in any of the details

[00:50:33] for you i haven't opened it isn't that isn't that weird so you know understanding get my file

[00:50:43] get my details get my birth certificate was probably the most important things in my life

[00:50:49] for about two and a half years now i've got it not but i'm i'm i'm bothered i'm sure i'm bothered

[00:50:55] but just at the minute i don't feel any need to to delve into it because i'm in it i mean

[00:51:02] a kind of good place and it that journey that part of that journey i think he's coming to an end

[00:51:09] well yeah no it's not in there so um what point is what what point is can you share

[00:51:23] that you haven't done already because you know i'm thinking about stuff that has occurred to you

[00:51:29] but i haven't asked the right question to unlock the learning law i think one of the real tragedy is

[00:51:37] the lack of support that's available to to adult adoptees um i spent time with psychotherapists and

[00:51:46] psychologists who couldn't around no understanding of the impact of the adoption process you know

[00:51:56] and these are you know these psychologists so they've got their pH days right they're right

[00:52:03] up there in terms of their topic and their subject their knowledge but they don't get the impact

[00:52:10] of relinquishment and that trauma that can be set up when you adopted as a as a baby or a

[00:52:17] small child so it frustrates me that supports not more readily available

[00:52:24] you know i never understand understood this thing about adoption therapy seven to be registered

[00:52:28] with off-stead you know and therefore not as available except through adoption agencies i mean

[00:52:38] just well that's this is a this is an English thing uh listeners but it's gone it's a it's a

[00:52:43] restriction it's gone but it wasn't because i i had sight of the i had sight i had a look at um

[00:52:52] oh i tell it i tell you this or actually so a couple of years ago when i started

[00:52:57] looking around the space and i was thinking of becoming an like a coach for adoptees and

[00:53:05] somebody clearly didn't like the idea of me doing that right because they they reported me to

[00:53:13] off-stead i got a letter from off-stead saying are you doing this and at the time

[00:53:21] i wasn't and since then i haven't and and i haven't because i saw the i saw that they needed

[00:53:29] this registration and they had some things uh in terms of the thresholds the regulations

[00:53:39] the need the need of stuff that you

[00:53:42] in the silence, I'm just saying the word them. The hurdles to get registration were huge

[00:53:52] and they were not just they were not just um almost them weren't related anything related

[00:54:01] to do with experience with working with adoptees it was mainly um financial stuff

[00:54:08] um so it had no bearing whatsoever you know most of the sort of

[00:54:16] communication so yeah and so that's that's gone now anyway and hopefully that should open up the

[00:54:23] that should open up the supply which is not so but we should have more more therapists

[00:54:30] in in any way but then the i was talking to an adoptee who's uh in the states who's a licensed

[00:54:41] clinical social worker um so kind of like if that it is but they must make a distinction between

[00:54:47] and she said even now even now um 30 years after um the publishing of the primal wound

[00:54:56] which was the first kind of big emotional psychological wound stuff trauma trauma

[00:55:05] I mean one of 30 years now some most social workers in the states have no

[00:55:13] no no training in this and they have no knowledge of it if if they

[00:55:20] they everything is judged on the post what happened after the adoption so everything is down

[00:55:32] everything is put down to the the quality the parenting quality should we call it and nothing

[00:55:40] nothing is uh nothing is made nothing is discussed about that actually the relinquishment trauma

[00:55:48] it's all to do with um people saying oh well if you're so if you're an adoptee and you suffer

[00:55:54] from trauma it must be because you had bad adoptive pains and it still it still goes on you know

[00:56:02] yeah so I think I think if you can finding yourself some you know appropriately knowledgeable

[00:56:12] support is it is kind of where it's been fundamental for me um finding those right people and I've had to be

[00:56:24] I've had to be kind of creative in the way I've identified people you know I uh

[00:56:30] somebody has been really really important part of my journey um I I heard them on a podcast

[00:56:38] and then I found them on LinkedIn and you know I I trapped them down I begged them to work with me

[00:56:45] I kind of went now if I was too busy and I haven't got any slots in my schedule and I'm like

[00:56:49] but you know I literally begged them to work with me and they did in the end they're absolutely

[00:56:55] incredible so you know don't don't kind of take no for an answer and find the right people

[00:57:02] but ask the right question that's it yeah and um that brings up that that kind of

[00:57:10] persistence and you know and and restlessness yeah echoes echoes with me and it takes

[00:57:18] but it also reminds me if one of the the darkest things that I saw um and I've seen in this

[00:57:26] in this world which was to do with an adoption failing because the adoptive parent wouldn't go

[00:57:33] outside the the the the county in which and they lived together and uh and this is just

[00:57:46] this this is just the worst the the worst thing I've I've heard you know you you were bounded by

[00:57:56] you

[00:57:58] thank you for sharing today well I you know I have a bit of interest in paper it's always nice to

[00:58:04] catch up with you Simon so I've enjoyed chatting to you but I always do me too me too thanks

[00:58:11] for watching this sort of lessons we'll speak to you roasting to ke bye bye