November 25, 2024 • 32 mins
"I almost feel like there was a blueprint, and I was a character to fit into that blueprint." -- Tim Perdion
Episode Summary:
In this episode of Unraveling Adoption, I had the opportunity to speak with Tim Perdion, an adoptee from Ohio who has spent the last decade navigating his journey of self-discovery and healing. Tim shares his experience of being adopted shortly after birth and the feelings of not belonging that plagued him throughout his childhood. Despite growing up in a loving family, he struggled with anger and a sense of isolation, which led him to seek validation through sports and relationships.
As a teenager, Tim turned to substances to cope with his internal struggles, leading to a reputation for overindulgence in high school. After facing personal crises in adulthood, including two divorces, he sought help at a trauma and addiction clinic, where he began to confront the deeper issues related to his adoption. Tim highlights the lack of focus on adoption-related trauma in traditional recovery settings and emphasizes the importance of vulnerability and community for male adoptees.
He introduces the concept of the "orphaned heart," describing the emotional barriers adoptees build to protect themselves from feelings of abandonment and rejection. Tim encourages younger male adoptees to explore their inner worlds and seek support, reminding them that they are not alone in their struggles.
This episode is a heartfelt exploration of the complexities of adoption, the significance of community, and the power of vulnerability. I hope Tim's story resonates with many and inspires others to seek understanding and connection in their own journeys.
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RESOURCES:
Tim’s information:
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Email Tim at tim@prodigalpathways.com
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Tim’s Website: http://prodigalpathways.com/
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Find Tim on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timperdion/
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Find Tim on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tperdion
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Find Tim on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/timperdion/
Books mentioned in the episode:
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The Primal Wound by Nancy Verrier: https://www.amazon.com/Primal-Wound-Understanding-Adopted-Child/dp/0963648004
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to this episode of Unraveling Adoption, an intentional space
to delve into adoption's complexities together. I'm Beth
Cyberson. I'm an adoptive mom of a courageous and insightful
20-year-old son, Joey. I'm walking beside him while working on
my own personal growth and healing. I'm also a certified coach
helping anyone seeking to move their lives forward. Joey
(00:23):
and I are committed to helping anyone impacted by adoption, and we
want to help the general public understand adoption's complexities better
too. So I love having male guests on the podcast because
I want my son to be able to hear the male perspective and because
the adoption community is filled and overflowing with white
women. Ah, we're everywhere. So whenever
(00:45):
I can, I love to highlight the stories of male and non-binary adoptees.
Today's guest is Tim Perdian, an adoptee from Ohio who's
been in reunion with his birth family and coming into adoption consciousness
for the past 10 or so years. Like many other
adoptees, in the past, he's struggled with anger issues, addiction, and
relationship troubles, but he has found some tools that have helped him
(01:08):
greatly. He wants to help especially other male adoptees and
those who love them understand the importance of vulnerability and
asking for help. So welcome to Unraveling Adoption, Tim.
Yes, yes. I think your story is very important for us all to hear, especially,
you know, I have a son that's struggling right
(01:30):
now with some of these issues. And I am all
ears. I want to learn from your story. And
I just think it's so important to listen to adult adoptees. So thank
you so much. Well, why don't you just start giving us a basic outline of
Yeah, so some of this with hindsight, having gotten into reunion and
(01:51):
understanding a little bit more of the story. So I was adopted about 60 days
after I was born. New information is that I
was born and then I was in some kind of foster care for
the period of time up until I was placed with my parents. So
that was actually something I just learned within the last couple of weeks. So
my parents that adopted me were not able to
(02:13):
have children. My mother wasn't able to have children. And so adoption
was their way to build a family. They adopted my sister 16 to 18 months before
me. So I was the second of
two adopted children in this family. And we were raised in
a home that I would say was very loving.
The intentions were all very good, yet I always
(02:35):
felt something was just off, like I didn't belong, didn't
fit in. I was a really competitive kid,
played a lot of sports, and I didn't see any of that in the family that adopted me.
They were actually the opposite. So I was on a different spectrum. So,
grew up feeling like I just had to figure out what
I needed to do to fit in. And the way I look at it
(02:58):
is, I almost feel like there was a blueprint, and I
was a character to fit into that blueprint on
what my mom had expectations for. And I
don't think it was negative intentions. I think she just wanted the best.
But at that time then, I felt like I just couldn't be
myself, or it wasn't okay to be myself. What I remember,
(03:18):
a couple things that kind of illustrate, I would be angry
as a child and sometimes there's just these outbursts of anger. And
she's like, I don't know what to do with you or what's wrong with you. And
so that would reinforce this thing, this notion that
I was, there was something wrong with me or that I was different. and
that maybe I might have done something in
(03:40):
order to be given up. And so I knew I was adopted from
as long as they shared that information, but I don't know that
I knew what it meant until later. And, you know, I
think what I experienced was there weren't a lot of other adopted
kids that I went to school with. So right away, that's another way of reinforcing
something's different about me. You kind of internalize that
(04:01):
message as maybe there is something wrong with me. And then I
find myself into like, these behaviors of
proving and being really competitive, trying to prove, which
then leads to getting into situations where I get bullied
a little bit and where I'm constantly searching and
seeking to attach to people, authority figures,
(04:22):
teachers. And as I kind of navigate my
way through grade school, I had some
issues with a particular teacher where I was like really attached And
then I got in trouble in the class with a couple other boys. And then all
of a sudden, this teacher just really didn't ever seem to want to
talk to me or give me the kind of attention. And fast forward a
(04:43):
few years. He starts kind of calling me
names, you know, in a sports context, but calling me names with
other kids. And so I went from like really competitive in
sports to feeling like I'm going to
go a different route. And I think that's where I started to find my
way into self-medicating with drugs and alcohol. And
(05:04):
ways of just escaping or just trying to
kind of numb this feeling of
I'm alone, don't feel like I have the support. I don't
feel like I can go ask for the help, right? So I just learned to
kind of keep everything inside in a compartment. And
one of the things that seemed awkward for me was growing
(05:25):
up in a home where we just had lots of things we
didn't talk about. The biggest thing
that I could say is that my father had a twin brother who
had a same-sex partner from the time
I was born until my uncle's partner died.
I was around 17 of AIDS. And
(05:46):
my dad's brother, twin brother, died several years later
in 1990 of AIDS as well. We didn't talk about that. We
didn't talk about that. You know, and so I think there's a
fear of what people would think. So the
overall message I got growing up was put an image
out to the world that here's how we want people to
(06:07):
perceive us. And we don't really deal with whatever the
conflict or any kind of things inside. We keep that
Yeah. Yeah. So the carpet would be metaphorically really lumpy.
Yeah. Oh, gosh. Your story is probably very
(06:30):
familiar to a lot of adoptees that just feel misaligned, like,
ah, I don't belong here. You know, I'm this athletic go-getter type
and my family's not. You sound more vibrant
and wanting to face things directly and your family's, you know, shoving things
under the rug. And that must have just felt so alone. So
were you in high school when you found substances around that time?
(06:52):
Did you find other kids to use substances with or were you by yourself in your bedroom?
Yeah, there were other kids and then also probably
alone as well, I think. Yeah, you know, it
might have started as a social thing. And then, you know, I
think it kind of escalates to where like, this is just something that is
accessible. And it helps me escape whatever
(07:15):
it was, I felt I guess it was like this, this hole that you feel that you're
trying to fill, or numb or whatever. And so that
was some way of kind of doing that. So it started
as a group thing, and probably was that but also a
Yeah, you know, my son started using substances when he
was probably in seventh or eighth grade. And he found
(07:37):
other kids that were getting bullied for being Asian. So
it's like, of course, you find people that match you and
that are verifying validating what you're going through. That makes
total sense. And then he also then also did
it by himself. And he kind of outpaced a lot of his cohorts.
They're like, Joey, what are you doing? You're going too far. Did
(07:58):
that happen to you too? Like you went way further with the substances than
Yeah, so I might have had a nickname in high school, Ralph,
because I would drink too much. Okay, okay, throwing up.
So yeah, it was like going way beyond
Yeah, yeah, I think my son scared some of his friends. They're like, dude, we're
(08:19):
just trying to have fun here. And he sure I'm sure he was
also wanting to have fun, but it was way deeper for him. He was trying
So yeah, and I would say,
I never considered myself an alcoholic. I
don't drink anymore. I haven't drank for five years. But I would
say I did definitely abuse alcohol from
(08:41):
a perspective of just drinking too much and too
much. I think in college, getting fairly
drunk, blackout drunk type thing and just like where
people might stop, you know, I might just have kept going. And so, yeah.
just trying to soothe that pain or fill a gap
that isn't being filled in other ways. You know, especially as
(09:03):
young people, they just they're like, I don't know, this seems
to work. I'll just keep trying this. Yeah, it kind of
does work for a little bit, but not
super sustainable. So did you end up you
said you don't really consider yourself an alcoholic. Did you do 12 step programs or was that
Yeah. So I would say we could
(09:24):
fast forward, but I navigated through life still
wearing masks and trying to kind of keep this image of everything
looks good and professionally things look good. I had good
jobs, but the relationship side of things, I've been divorced two
times. And around the time I was 50 is
when the anger started coming out. This was like five years ago.
(09:47):
I met my biological mother in 2015 and
met my biological father in 2016. And
those are interesting stories. But in 2019, the
anger started coming out and ultimately in
really destructive ways. And it got
to the point where I was like, I don't know what's going on, but I
(10:09):
need help. So I ended up finding my
way to trauma mental health addiction Clinic,
okay in Tucson, Arizona for 30 days and
then spent 30 days in a sober living house in Houston, Texas Okay,
and so this was the opportunity for me to dig into
like what's going on below the waterline so to speak yeah, and
(10:32):
I would say that what was Disappointing now looking back is
when I went to this place. We looked at childhood trauma. We looked at
the addiction cycle we looked at codependency, we
looked at, you know, the connection between food we eat, our mental health,
we looked at just so many different things. Didn't look at the
So few people are really attuned to that. And I've noticed
(10:54):
that too, in the rehab world and addiction spaces, like, it
doesn't come up like, oh, that's a huge, huge, huge piece of
it. So gosh, did you figure it out? Did you piece it
In 2020, I read The Primal Wound. And
so then I'm like, wow, that for me
was very prescriptive, putting language to my lived
(11:17):
experience. And it opened the door
to me personally to say, okay, I had peeled a bunch of layers and
I got into trauma that was layered on top of the adoption trauma.
So now I'm like, okay, so I've just had this persistent search
for why do I do what I do? And I might get some
answers, but I'm like, yeah, but I don't think that's the real answer. And so I kept digging.
(11:39):
And so I really got into kind of the impact of the trauma related
to adoption. And I wanted to understand more of
the story. Because what I had heard in
the early part of my reunion didn't quite
line up with my lived experiences. And so I just
kind of kept digging and digging and understanding a little bit more. It's
(12:00):
like a puzzle that you don't have the box to, and you just keep
getting all these random pieces. And over time, you're able to put more
That's a good analogy. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So
you're, you're piecing it together and, but there's not just one giant
piece, there's many little pieces. And what was your turning point there?
Well, you know, part of it is to dig into what
(12:23):
is that anger? What's the source of it? And
to get into vulnerability pieces to say, okay, I gotta
figure out where's all that from? And it was just stuffed down emotions.
And so within the last couple years, I've really been
digging into understanding that better. And one of the acronyms
I kind of saw somewhere was people say, well,
(12:44):
how are you doing? I'm fine. Well, for me, fine was
Which means all the suppressed push down anger which
starts coming out. And so you're like, well, when it's in there, it's teaching,
it's, it's there to teach. And I think part of it was to teach,
(13:05):
like, just how much I had stuffed down and recognizing then,
that's the part of coming out of the fog, I think of like,
going from thinking, oh, my adoption probably had
some impact, but not that much of an impact. And maybe most of
what happened in my life was because my childhood, But
then really understanding, no, that's probably not the case. It's like
(13:26):
nuanced and there's much more and then say, OK, well, what was
that in utero experience like and
what might have happened there? And, you know, understanding that
there's probably not a person who's been put up for adoption that
had a positive in utero experience with the environment. Soothing
and calm and all that. So yeah, just recognizing that
(13:49):
the emotion that was coming up was repressed stuff, getting
to understand attachment theory, getting to understand just how
all of that starts in such early stages, pre-birth
and then during those early parts and say, okay, those
are the experiences that I can understand and
I can now realize what
(14:12):
are those things I have to kind of work through. How do I
process those feelings? How do I get into community with
other people who are kind of going through some of these same things? Men
have a hard time identifying those feelings, we
stuff them down, we try to make it seem like we're okay, we're stoic, all
those things, because we're just supposed to suck it up. Yet, when
(14:35):
I get into community now with other men, and we create
these safe spaces, we see that everybody's posing.
Everybody's trying to make it seem like they're okay, and they're not. And
so it's really valuable to create those safe spaces and to
have guys shoulder to shoulder and recognizing
that we can support each other. But if it's
(14:57):
safe, and we're all struggling, we're all struggling. And then we say, well, what
were our childhoods like? And you go around the room and everybody's
like, Yeah, my dad was less like a drill sergeant, or,
you know, just was really tough growing up. I never saw expression of emotion,
or my dad was present, or parents were divorced,
or all the different things that would lead to not having good blueprints
(15:18):
or good models of how to express emotion in a
Yeah, how are you supposed to know? Yeah, so you're seeing that in these
rooms with other adoptees that a lot of adoptive parents, especially
the dads, probably as your role models, were kind of shut
down, unemotional, detached. And
it's no wonder. And like you said, there's no scenario that
(15:40):
I can think of where a birth mother's pregnancy is sweet
and peaceful and full of self care. You know,
the whole time you're being baked, there's trauma happening in
utero. And just all of that just adds up.
And so what drove you to find one of those rooms with
(16:02):
Well, I think one of the things again, is trying
to be understood. And sometimes even
with therapists or others like there's a minimization of
the trauma related to adoptees for those that don't understand
it. Yes. And I think I found my way to talking
to a therapist who had been adopted, okay, who also
(16:24):
had given up someone for adoption. And so, you
know, when you're talking to someone who understands the experience, you
don't have to take all the time to see if people understand it.
There's nothing more gratifying than to be in that type
of a space and feel seen, heard, understood.
(16:45):
And so as I kind of went through
the door of connecting with other groups of adoptees, I'm
like, well, this is a place that feels like
I belong, feels like I'm understood. And in
some ways, it's been really helpful to kind of have access
to other adoptees to share those experiences. And
(17:06):
a couple of years ago, I was in an Uber somewhere, I
think it was in Dallas, and just get on the topic of
adoption, and the guy was adopted.
And I start articulating to him all
of my struggles and all the ways in which I
coped to deal with those things. And I think he almost stopped the car because
(17:26):
he just couldn't believe. He'd been struggling with
all this stuff, and he never really connected the fact that this
could be related to adoption. That was
an example. I've been to several men's retreats and
around a campfire, there's other men that have adopted children.
And they're talking about some of the struggles that
(17:48):
not quite sure what's going on inside my child. I can't
quite understand it. But when I started to share some of my own
struggles, it's almost like I could don't need to know the situation, but
could kind of say, here's probably some of the things that are going on
inside. And so, to me, that's
just like an opportunity to help
(18:09):
other people. And you don't help other
people by staying quiet. You have to tell the stories, you have to
connect, go find those groups, go find those circles of
places where people are wanting to hear more about
those experiences. And I would wonder for you, there
probably was a time where I don't know if I want to hear that. But no, I really do
(18:31):
want to hear that because sometimes I do find adoptive parents,
they don't want to know some of those things. Or they might say, well,
I think my child's fine. And maybe
at times it looks like they are, but that might also be what I want to
believe. And so I might not be as curious as I could be
to really truly understand. And I think for me, if
(18:53):
I was 12, 13, I might not have ever understood what
was going on inside of me to be able to articulate that in a way that
someone say, oh, Let's dig into adoption. We weren't doing that
No, no way. No way. Yeah, you and I are about the same age. And yeah, we didn't
talk about that stuff in my house either. Yeah. And as an adoptive parent, there's
a lot of, Oh, not my kid. My kid's fine. A lot of
(19:15):
denial because it, it reflects on you. You know, it's a
little bit of ego in there and like, Oh no, if my kid's struggling, what
does that say about me as a parent? Oh no. I
didn't have too much of a choice though because my son went into crisis at age
15 and then everything just sort of fell apart. So then I had no choice but to
look at it and figure it out. And then I read The Primal Wound and I was on my way. And
(19:36):
if anyone doesn't know The Primal Wound, it's a book a lot of adopted
people know and a lot of people in the adoption constellation know. It's written by an
adoptive parent, Nancy Verrier, and it was kind of one of
the first, not the first, but one of the first books that
really outlined what's going on for the adoptees.
And there are other books now that are probably better. I
(19:56):
mean, it's a couple of decades old, but I know a lot of people that
that book is what kind of flipped the switch for them, and it certainly did for me. Oh
my gosh. What do you think are some of the, and
you've hinted at them, but for male adoptees, there
seems to be extra layers of blockage. Is that
that cultural male thing, don't show your feelings, that kind
(20:17):
I think there are obstacles there. One thing
that I'll say, getting into some of my own
faith, getting into faith helped a lot. And I read a book that
probably described this obstacle better than anything. And
it's kind of the orphaned heart. The orphaned
heart is a heart that's closed off because
(20:39):
it doesn't trust. because it has
fears of abandonment, rejection, and intimacy. And
as I think about my own journey, I
didn't trust. Trust had been violated, didn't
feel like people were safe, so I had a hard time trusting. Inherently,
from a subconscious standpoint, you have this fear of
(21:02):
abandonment, And on the other end of the spectrum, fear
of intimacy, you get too close. And, you know,
so there's this oscillation between, and then just
inherently, also, we all want to belong, but sometimes it feels
like we've been rejected. So no trust, fear
of abandonment, intimacy and rejection. resemble.
(21:22):
So what do I do? I build a wall around my heart,
so to speak. So therefore, I don't have access to
it. If I don't have access to it, I have to
cope. I have to show up in the world with
masks that say I'm okay, coping mechanisms, and
I might find what would be considered counterfeit affections,
(21:45):
like money or stuff, materialism,
or how I succeed in the workplace, or
drugs or alcohol or sex or relationships or pornography or
whatever those things are that I might be trying to
soothe with. Yeah, people use all sorts of things. And
(22:05):
so the bridge to get out of
that and into what would be called true sonship
or daughtership would be forgiveness. Oh, who are we
forgiving? Forgiveness of self, forgiveness of others. So
if I let go of the things that created that
wall, bitterness, anger, resentment,
(22:28):
you know, that's the hardening of the heart as well. So the softening
of the heart is I've got to let go of those things that created
that. But that's really scary, right? But
because it's become an identity. And
my identity is wrapped up in protecting myself. So I'm more
used to just being in survival mode. But
(22:49):
I'm restless, I don't feel free, I feel burdened
and in bondage. And if I want peace, and I want freedom,
and like when I went to the rehab place, the first thing they ask you is like,
what do you want to get out of this? Oh, and I would have just
said, I want to be free. And I want peace and
freedom. And so this notion of I've put this hard
(23:10):
layer of stuff around my heart to protect myself, but
inside it's like turmoil. It's like, you know, you see a duck,
looks calm on the top of the water, but underneath it's paddling furiously, and
so it's not peaceful. So I think that accessing, and
it's like an archaeological project, going inside, understanding
all those layers. Something I read in a book called
(23:32):
Soul Care is we will only ascend to the level
of our self-awareness. So if
I don't go in to understand why I do what I do with
the willingness and the open mind to letting go of
things that no longer serve me. So it's very complicated, I
think. And I was on the page
(23:53):
of, I can't continue the way I am. And
I don't want to leave the world just to leave the world. Okay. Because
I want to figure this out. And so, you know, I know that sometimes
you have these thoughts of maybe this would just be better if I wasn't here.
And that's a common thing for people who just don't
know what to do. I'm so stuck. I don't know what to do. I feel alone.
(24:16):
But I would also say that the sign of strength, and
I didn't know at the time, and having the courage to ask for help, Okay.
That's the other aspect too, I think. So there's all these levers that are
available to us, but I don't want to ask for help because in the world
where men need to seem like they have it all together, we
might have been taught asking for help was a sign of weakness. Yeah.
(24:40):
Yeah. So did you notice when you started asking for
Well, it was awkward and uncomfortable because you got to do something that
you're not used to doing and going into that rehab environment, You're
stripped of basic things like having your
cell phone. You've got to get in line for things. You've got
to report at different places to check in. So
(25:03):
you're basically stripped of things that would allow you
to be on your own. So you have to learn what
it looks like to advocate for yourself, you have to learn what
it looks like to ask others for help. So right
away, they're teaching self advocacy. And if
you want to see a particular therapist, you got to kind of
(25:25):
make some of that type of stuff. So I started to get
over the discomfort of having to ask for help.
I'm not sure I'm perfect at it. Sometimes it's still hard, but You
know, when you see some success, receiving was
always hard, right? So if I have that, I'm not worthy, I'm
unlovable wound, that belief that might have started at the
(25:46):
core, and I don't believe, then I have a hard time receiving help
or love or kind gestures. One of my coaches said, you
need to learn how to give without expectations and
So I might have given to others with a string attached
(26:06):
to if I do this, then I'll get this. Yeah. But
if I started to give without any expectation of anything in
return, I didn't have to get something from that person. But
maybe it would come in another way from another person. So this
notion of I'm worthy, and I have to allow that in, versus
a somebody would give me a compliment, like I, you know, kind of
(26:28):
pushing it away, receiving it very well dismissing it.
Because I'm like, maybe I'm trying to be humble, but it's not really humble. It's like, maybe
Yeah. Yeah. Pushing away. I see that in a lot of people I know. I
do that myself sometimes too. Oh my gosh. I'm resonating
with all the things you're saying and I've seen it in my son and in other
adult adoptees I know. And I think that your talk
(26:50):
here will resonate with a lot of people and I really appreciate you sharing it. What
advice do you have to other male adoptees? Maybe someone
like my kid that's 20. You know, a younger guy,
Well, your internal world has to be confusing. And
first of all, I appreciate that and validate that,
(27:11):
I guess. Second is that there is
help. You're not alone. So it is like it's okay
to ask for help. It's okay to not be okay. And
you're worthy. The messages, the lies, the limiting
beliefs that we might have in our heads based on maybe,
you know, trauma and other things that might have seemingly validated
(27:34):
those lies, because we get that confirmation bias. So being open
to receiving help to
asking for it. And if I would have anything to say
to my younger version, if I were 18, I'd be like, get
to know your inner world. And don't always
think that the outside is where you want to put your attention. So
(27:57):
we often want to blame, we often want to look for things outside
of ourselves. And I think getting to know yourself at
a really deep level, intimately, And don't
think that you know kind of what's going on inside there. There's a
lot of complex things going on. And it's like just
a willingness to peel back the layers if you
(28:22):
That is some really great advice. There's a lot in there
that people could work on and pick apart and I just really appreciate
you sharing your story and obviously everybody is
still on this trajectory of learning and growing and you're
not saying you figured everything out perfectly and you're still on
the path as all of us are and I really appreciate that. Is
there a way that people can get a hold of you or do you have other
(28:47):
Yeah, so I have a website, prodigalpathways.com. I'm
starting to do more blogging there and just sharing some
of my experience. I'm going through a life coaching course
right now, looking to get that certification, which is a
way for me to kind of help guide others and come alongside others
to take all of the experience I have and share that with
(29:09):
others to validate them and help them in their own journeys.
I'm also on LinkedIn, got a Facebook page, but
the Prodigal Pathways is the place where I'm going to put more of the content related
to this out on that. And so there's some things out there now, and there'll be more and
Okay, that's great. I'll put those links in the show notes in case anyone is
listening that's driving or unable to write that down right now. So
(29:31):
go look in the show notes, which are usually below the feed of
the podcast, or sometimes you have to like, swipe left
or right on your phone. So just find it somewhere around there. Is
No, I don't think so. The biggest thing is you're not alone.
And there is always light.
(29:52):
You know, sometimes it feels dark, but there's definitely light out
there. And I think getting into community with
others and not trying to do this on your own is
Oh yeah, that's huge. That is huge. And we do have the
community calendar on our website, unravelingadoption.com slash
(30:13):
calendar. There are tons of support groups. There's some just for
male adoptees and there are some for all adoptees and
some for all the constellation together and all sorts of different groups
and retreats and all sorts of things. So check that calendar out
if you're looking for support and let me know if you have anything
to add to that as well. Well, Tim, thank you so much. I
(30:33):
really appreciate you sharing your heart with us. You're doing great work. I
hope people come follow you on your blog page and on
your social media and just keep up with you. And thank you so much for being
Thank you. And I appreciate everything that you're doing. I think the more stories
that are out there also helps amplify this platform and
allows people to see that there is a expanding community
(30:57):
Yes, there is a lot of people out there that want to help. So
reach out. There's lots of support out there. So no one
is alone in this and we're all trying to help each other. So thank
you for joining me today. After you go check out
Tim's website, make sure and go look at unravelingadoption.com for
all sorts of resources and events and things that we have posted there. I
(31:19):
haven't talked about the book much lately. We wrote a book last
August called Adoption and Suicidality. We really
hope the book helps lots of people who are adopted or
who have adopted people in their lives, or birth parents for
that matter, because adoptees and birth parents have exponentially
higher rates of suicidality. So please check that
(31:41):
book out on Amazon if you are so inclined, Adoption
and Suicidality. And we really appreciate you helping spread
the word about the book to therapists and other families. And
also, if you've read it or listened to it, please write
a review on Goodreads or Amazon. That will help
a lot of other people find the book too. Please share this episode
(32:02):
with anyone you know who might be a male adoptee or might have
a male adoptee in their family or wants to just learn about how better
to support adoptees in general and to understand the
adopted experience. We really appreciate you listening in
today. Thanks for all your support. Tim and I want you
Welcome to this episode of Unraveling Adoption, an intentional space
to delve into adoption's complexities together. I'm Beth
Cyberson. I'm an adoptive mom of a courageous and insightful
20-year-old son, Joey. I'm walking beside him while working on
my own personal growth and healing. I'm also a certified coach
helping anyone seeking to move their lives forward. Joey
(00:23):
and I are committed to helping anyone impacted by adoption, and we
want to help the general public understand adoption's complexities better
too. So I love having male guests on the podcast because
I want my son to be able to hear the male perspective and because
the adoption community is filled and overflowing with white
women. Ah, we're everywhere. So whenever
(00:45):
I can, I love to highlight the stories of male and non-binary adoptees.
Today's guest is Tim Perdian, an adoptee from Ohio who's
been in reunion with his birth family and coming into adoption consciousness
for the past 10 or so years. Like many other
adoptees, in the past, he's struggled with anger issues, addiction, and
relationship troubles, but he has found some tools that have helped him
(01:08):
greatly. He wants to help especially other male adoptees and
those who love them understand the importance of vulnerability and
asking for help. So welcome to Unraveling Adoption, Tim.
Yes, yes. I think your story is very important for us all to hear, especially,
you know, I have a son that's struggling right
(01:30):
now with some of these issues. And I am all
ears. I want to learn from your story. And
I just think it's so important to listen to adult adoptees. So thank
you so much. Well, why don't you just start giving us a basic outline of
Yeah, so some of this with hindsight, having gotten into reunion and
(01:51):
understanding a little bit more of the story. So I was adopted about 60 days
after I was born. New information is that I
was born and then I was in some kind of foster care for
the period of time up until I was placed with my parents. So
that was actually something I just learned within the last couple of weeks. So
my parents that adopted me were not able to
(02:13):
have children. My mother wasn't able to have children. And so adoption
was their way to build a family. They adopted my sister 16 to 18 months before
me. So I was the second of
two adopted children in this family. And we were raised in
a home that I would say was very loving.
The intentions were all very good, yet I always
(02:35):
felt something was just off, like I didn't belong, didn't
fit in. I was a really competitive kid,
played a lot of sports, and I didn't see any of that in the family that adopted me.
They were actually the opposite. So I was on a different spectrum. So,
grew up feeling like I just had to figure out what
I needed to do to fit in. And the way I look at it
(02:58):
is, I almost feel like there was a blueprint, and I
was a character to fit into that blueprint on
what my mom had expectations for. And I
don't think it was negative intentions. I think she just wanted the best.
But at that time then, I felt like I just couldn't be
myself, or it wasn't okay to be myself. What I remember,
(03:18):
a couple things that kind of illustrate, I would be angry
as a child and sometimes there's just these outbursts of anger. And
she's like, I don't know what to do with you or what's wrong with you. And
so that would reinforce this thing, this notion that
I was, there was something wrong with me or that I was different. and
that maybe I might have done something in
(03:40):
order to be given up. And so I knew I was adopted from
as long as they shared that information, but I don't know that
I knew what it meant until later. And, you know, I
think what I experienced was there weren't a lot of other adopted
kids that I went to school with. So right away, that's another way of reinforcing
something's different about me. You kind of internalize that
(04:01):
message as maybe there is something wrong with me. And then I
find myself into like, these behaviors of
proving and being really competitive, trying to prove, which
then leads to getting into situations where I get bullied
a little bit and where I'm constantly searching and
seeking to attach to people, authority figures,
(04:22):
teachers. And as I kind of navigate my
way through grade school, I had some
issues with a particular teacher where I was like really attached And
then I got in trouble in the class with a couple other boys. And then all
of a sudden, this teacher just really didn't ever seem to want to
talk to me or give me the kind of attention. And fast forward a
(04:43):
few years. He starts kind of calling me
names, you know, in a sports context, but calling me names with
other kids. And so I went from like really competitive in
sports to feeling like I'm going to
go a different route. And I think that's where I started to find my
way into self-medicating with drugs and alcohol. And
(05:04):
ways of just escaping or just trying to
kind of numb this feeling of
I'm alone, don't feel like I have the support. I don't
feel like I can go ask for the help, right? So I just learned to
kind of keep everything inside in a compartment. And
one of the things that seemed awkward for me was growing
(05:25):
up in a home where we just had lots of things we
didn't talk about. The biggest thing
that I could say is that my father had a twin brother who
had a same-sex partner from the time
I was born until my uncle's partner died.
I was around 17 of AIDS. And
(05:46):
my dad's brother, twin brother, died several years later
in 1990 of AIDS as well. We didn't talk about that. We
didn't talk about that. You know, and so I think there's a
fear of what people would think. So the
overall message I got growing up was put an image
out to the world that here's how we want people to
(06:07):
perceive us. And we don't really deal with whatever the
conflict or any kind of things inside. We keep that
Yeah. Yeah. So the carpet would be metaphorically really lumpy.
Yeah. Oh, gosh. Your story is probably very
(06:30):
familiar to a lot of adoptees that just feel misaligned, like,
ah, I don't belong here. You know, I'm this athletic go-getter type
and my family's not. You sound more vibrant
and wanting to face things directly and your family's, you know, shoving things
under the rug. And that must have just felt so alone. So
were you in high school when you found substances around that time?
(06:52):
Did you find other kids to use substances with or were you by yourself in your bedroom?
Yeah, there were other kids and then also probably
alone as well, I think. Yeah, you know, it
might have started as a social thing. And then, you know, I
think it kind of escalates to where like, this is just something that is
accessible. And it helps me escape whatever
(07:15):
it was, I felt I guess it was like this, this hole that you feel that you're
trying to fill, or numb or whatever. And so that
was some way of kind of doing that. So it started
as a group thing, and probably was that but also a
Yeah, you know, my son started using substances when he
was probably in seventh or eighth grade. And he found
(07:37):
other kids that were getting bullied for being Asian. So
it's like, of course, you find people that match you and
that are verifying validating what you're going through. That makes
total sense. And then he also then also did
it by himself. And he kind of outpaced a lot of his cohorts.
They're like, Joey, what are you doing? You're going too far. Did
(07:58):
that happen to you too? Like you went way further with the substances than
Yeah, so I might have had a nickname in high school, Ralph,
because I would drink too much. Okay, okay, throwing up.
So yeah, it was like going way beyond
Yeah, yeah, I think my son scared some of his friends. They're like, dude, we're
(08:19):
just trying to have fun here. And he sure I'm sure he was
also wanting to have fun, but it was way deeper for him. He was trying
So yeah, and I would say,
I never considered myself an alcoholic. I
don't drink anymore. I haven't drank for five years. But I would
say I did definitely abuse alcohol from
(08:41):
a perspective of just drinking too much and too
much. I think in college, getting fairly
drunk, blackout drunk type thing and just like where
people might stop, you know, I might just have kept going. And so, yeah.
just trying to soothe that pain or fill a gap
that isn't being filled in other ways. You know, especially as
(09:03):
young people, they just they're like, I don't know, this seems
to work. I'll just keep trying this. Yeah, it kind of
does work for a little bit, but not
super sustainable. So did you end up you
said you don't really consider yourself an alcoholic. Did you do 12 step programs or was that
Yeah. So I would say we could
(09:24):
fast forward, but I navigated through life still
wearing masks and trying to kind of keep this image of everything
looks good and professionally things look good. I had good
jobs, but the relationship side of things, I've been divorced two
times. And around the time I was 50 is
when the anger started coming out. This was like five years ago.
(09:47):
I met my biological mother in 2015 and
met my biological father in 2016. And
those are interesting stories. But in 2019, the
anger started coming out and ultimately in
really destructive ways. And it got
to the point where I was like, I don't know what's going on, but I
(10:09):
need help. So I ended up finding my
way to trauma mental health addiction Clinic,
okay in Tucson, Arizona for 30 days and
then spent 30 days in a sober living house in Houston, Texas Okay,
and so this was the opportunity for me to dig into
like what's going on below the waterline so to speak yeah, and
(10:32):
I would say that what was Disappointing now looking back is
when I went to this place. We looked at childhood trauma. We looked at
the addiction cycle we looked at codependency, we
looked at, you know, the connection between food we eat, our mental health,
we looked at just so many different things. Didn't look at the
So few people are really attuned to that. And I've noticed
(10:54):
that too, in the rehab world and addiction spaces, like, it
doesn't come up like, oh, that's a huge, huge, huge piece of
it. So gosh, did you figure it out? Did you piece it
In 2020, I read The Primal Wound. And
so then I'm like, wow, that for me
was very prescriptive, putting language to my lived
(11:17):
experience. And it opened the door
to me personally to say, okay, I had peeled a bunch of layers and
I got into trauma that was layered on top of the adoption trauma.
So now I'm like, okay, so I've just had this persistent search
for why do I do what I do? And I might get some
answers, but I'm like, yeah, but I don't think that's the real answer. And so I kept digging.
(11:39):
And so I really got into kind of the impact of the trauma related
to adoption. And I wanted to understand more of
the story. Because what I had heard in
the early part of my reunion didn't quite
line up with my lived experiences. And so I just
kind of kept digging and digging and understanding a little bit more. It's
(12:00):
like a puzzle that you don't have the box to, and you just keep
getting all these random pieces. And over time, you're able to put more
That's a good analogy. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So
you're, you're piecing it together and, but there's not just one giant
piece, there's many little pieces. And what was your turning point there?
Well, you know, part of it is to dig into what
(12:23):
is that anger? What's the source of it? And
to get into vulnerability pieces to say, okay, I gotta
figure out where's all that from? And it was just stuffed down emotions.
And so within the last couple years, I've really been
digging into understanding that better. And one of the acronyms
I kind of saw somewhere was people say, well,
(12:44):
how are you doing? I'm fine. Well, for me, fine was
Which means all the suppressed push down anger which
starts coming out. And so you're like, well, when it's in there, it's teaching,
it's, it's there to teach. And I think part of it was to teach,
(13:05):
like, just how much I had stuffed down and recognizing then,
that's the part of coming out of the fog, I think of like,
going from thinking, oh, my adoption probably had
some impact, but not that much of an impact. And maybe most of
what happened in my life was because my childhood, But
then really understanding, no, that's probably not the case. It's like
(13:26):
nuanced and there's much more and then say, OK, well, what was
that in utero experience like and
what might have happened there? And, you know, understanding that
there's probably not a person who's been put up for adoption that
had a positive in utero experience with the environment. Soothing
and calm and all that. So yeah, just recognizing that
(13:49):
the emotion that was coming up was repressed stuff, getting
to understand attachment theory, getting to understand just how
all of that starts in such early stages, pre-birth
and then during those early parts and say, okay, those
are the experiences that I can understand and
I can now realize what
(14:12):
are those things I have to kind of work through. How do I
process those feelings? How do I get into community with
other people who are kind of going through some of these same things? Men
have a hard time identifying those feelings, we
stuff them down, we try to make it seem like we're okay, we're stoic, all
those things, because we're just supposed to suck it up. Yet, when
(14:35):
I get into community now with other men, and we create
these safe spaces, we see that everybody's posing.
Everybody's trying to make it seem like they're okay, and they're not. And
so it's really valuable to create those safe spaces and to
have guys shoulder to shoulder and recognizing
that we can support each other. But if it's
(14:57):
safe, and we're all struggling, we're all struggling. And then we say, well, what
were our childhoods like? And you go around the room and everybody's
like, Yeah, my dad was less like a drill sergeant, or,
you know, just was really tough growing up. I never saw expression of emotion,
or my dad was present, or parents were divorced,
or all the different things that would lead to not having good blueprints
(15:18):
or good models of how to express emotion in a
Yeah, how are you supposed to know? Yeah, so you're seeing that in these
rooms with other adoptees that a lot of adoptive parents, especially
the dads, probably as your role models, were kind of shut
down, unemotional, detached. And
it's no wonder. And like you said, there's no scenario that
(15:40):
I can think of where a birth mother's pregnancy is sweet
and peaceful and full of self care. You know,
the whole time you're being baked, there's trauma happening in
utero. And just all of that just adds up.
And so what drove you to find one of those rooms with
(16:02):
Well, I think one of the things again, is trying
to be understood. And sometimes even
with therapists or others like there's a minimization of
the trauma related to adoptees for those that don't understand
it. Yes. And I think I found my way to talking
to a therapist who had been adopted, okay, who also
(16:24):
had given up someone for adoption. And so, you
know, when you're talking to someone who understands the experience, you
don't have to take all the time to see if people understand it.
There's nothing more gratifying than to be in that type
of a space and feel seen, heard, understood.
(16:45):
And so as I kind of went through
the door of connecting with other groups of adoptees, I'm
like, well, this is a place that feels like
I belong, feels like I'm understood. And in
some ways, it's been really helpful to kind of have access
to other adoptees to share those experiences. And
(17:06):
a couple of years ago, I was in an Uber somewhere, I
think it was in Dallas, and just get on the topic of
adoption, and the guy was adopted.
And I start articulating to him all
of my struggles and all the ways in which I
coped to deal with those things. And I think he almost stopped the car because
(17:26):
he just couldn't believe. He'd been struggling with
all this stuff, and he never really connected the fact that this
could be related to adoption. That was
an example. I've been to several men's retreats and
around a campfire, there's other men that have adopted children.
And they're talking about some of the struggles that
(17:48):
not quite sure what's going on inside my child. I can't
quite understand it. But when I started to share some of my own
struggles, it's almost like I could don't need to know the situation, but
could kind of say, here's probably some of the things that are going on
inside. And so, to me, that's
just like an opportunity to help
(18:09):
other people. And you don't help other
people by staying quiet. You have to tell the stories, you have to
connect, go find those groups, go find those circles of
places where people are wanting to hear more about
those experiences. And I would wonder for you, there
probably was a time where I don't know if I want to hear that. But no, I really do
(18:31):
want to hear that because sometimes I do find adoptive parents,
they don't want to know some of those things. Or they might say, well,
I think my child's fine. And maybe
at times it looks like they are, but that might also be what I want to
believe. And so I might not be as curious as I could be
to really truly understand. And I think for me, if
(18:53):
I was 12, 13, I might not have ever understood what
was going on inside of me to be able to articulate that in a way that
someone say, oh, Let's dig into adoption. We weren't doing that
No, no way. No way. Yeah, you and I are about the same age. And yeah, we didn't
talk about that stuff in my house either. Yeah. And as an adoptive parent, there's
a lot of, Oh, not my kid. My kid's fine. A lot of
(19:15):
denial because it, it reflects on you. You know, it's a
little bit of ego in there and like, Oh no, if my kid's struggling, what
does that say about me as a parent? Oh no. I
didn't have too much of a choice though because my son went into crisis at age
15 and then everything just sort of fell apart. So then I had no choice but to
look at it and figure it out. And then I read The Primal Wound and I was on my way. And
(19:36):
if anyone doesn't know The Primal Wound, it's a book a lot of adopted
people know and a lot of people in the adoption constellation know. It's written by an
adoptive parent, Nancy Verrier, and it was kind of one of
the first, not the first, but one of the first books that
really outlined what's going on for the adoptees.
And there are other books now that are probably better. I
(19:56):
mean, it's a couple of decades old, but I know a lot of people that
that book is what kind of flipped the switch for them, and it certainly did for me. Oh
my gosh. What do you think are some of the, and
you've hinted at them, but for male adoptees, there
seems to be extra layers of blockage. Is that
that cultural male thing, don't show your feelings, that kind
(20:17):
I think there are obstacles there. One thing
that I'll say, getting into some of my own
faith, getting into faith helped a lot. And I read a book that
probably described this obstacle better than anything. And
it's kind of the orphaned heart. The orphaned
heart is a heart that's closed off because
(20:39):
it doesn't trust. because it has
fears of abandonment, rejection, and intimacy. And
as I think about my own journey, I
didn't trust. Trust had been violated, didn't
feel like people were safe, so I had a hard time trusting. Inherently,
from a subconscious standpoint, you have this fear of
(21:02):
abandonment, And on the other end of the spectrum, fear
of intimacy, you get too close. And, you know,
so there's this oscillation between, and then just
inherently, also, we all want to belong, but sometimes it feels
like we've been rejected. So no trust, fear
of abandonment, intimacy and rejection. resemble.
(21:22):
So what do I do? I build a wall around my heart,
so to speak. So therefore, I don't have access to
it. If I don't have access to it, I have to
cope. I have to show up in the world with
masks that say I'm okay, coping mechanisms, and
I might find what would be considered counterfeit affections,
(21:45):
like money or stuff, materialism,
or how I succeed in the workplace, or
drugs or alcohol or sex or relationships or pornography or
whatever those things are that I might be trying to
soothe with. Yeah, people use all sorts of things. And
(22:05):
so the bridge to get out of
that and into what would be called true sonship
or daughtership would be forgiveness. Oh, who are we
forgiving? Forgiveness of self, forgiveness of others. So
if I let go of the things that created that
wall, bitterness, anger, resentment,
(22:28):
you know, that's the hardening of the heart as well. So the softening
of the heart is I've got to let go of those things that created
that. But that's really scary, right? But
because it's become an identity. And
my identity is wrapped up in protecting myself. So I'm more
used to just being in survival mode. But
(22:49):
I'm restless, I don't feel free, I feel burdened
and in bondage. And if I want peace, and I want freedom,
and like when I went to the rehab place, the first thing they ask you is like,
what do you want to get out of this? Oh, and I would have just
said, I want to be free. And I want peace and
freedom. And so this notion of I've put this hard
(23:10):
layer of stuff around my heart to protect myself, but
inside it's like turmoil. It's like, you know, you see a duck,
looks calm on the top of the water, but underneath it's paddling furiously, and
so it's not peaceful. So I think that accessing, and
it's like an archaeological project, going inside, understanding
all those layers. Something I read in a book called
(23:32):
Soul Care is we will only ascend to the level
of our self-awareness. So if
I don't go in to understand why I do what I do with
the willingness and the open mind to letting go of
things that no longer serve me. So it's very complicated, I
think. And I was on the page
(23:53):
of, I can't continue the way I am. And
I don't want to leave the world just to leave the world. Okay. Because
I want to figure this out. And so, you know, I know that sometimes
you have these thoughts of maybe this would just be better if I wasn't here.
And that's a common thing for people who just don't
know what to do. I'm so stuck. I don't know what to do. I feel alone.
(24:16):
But I would also say that the sign of strength, and
I didn't know at the time, and having the courage to ask for help, Okay.
That's the other aspect too, I think. So there's all these levers that are
available to us, but I don't want to ask for help because in the world
where men need to seem like they have it all together, we
might have been taught asking for help was a sign of weakness. Yeah.
(24:40):
Yeah. So did you notice when you started asking for
Well, it was awkward and uncomfortable because you got to do something that
you're not used to doing and going into that rehab environment, You're
stripped of basic things like having your
cell phone. You've got to get in line for things. You've got
to report at different places to check in. So
(25:03):
you're basically stripped of things that would allow you
to be on your own. So you have to learn what
it looks like to advocate for yourself, you have to learn what
it looks like to ask others for help. So right
away, they're teaching self advocacy. And if
you want to see a particular therapist, you got to kind of
(25:25):
make some of that type of stuff. So I started to get
over the discomfort of having to ask for help.
I'm not sure I'm perfect at it. Sometimes it's still hard, but You
know, when you see some success, receiving was
always hard, right? So if I have that, I'm not worthy, I'm
unlovable wound, that belief that might have started at the
(25:46):
core, and I don't believe, then I have a hard time receiving help
or love or kind gestures. One of my coaches said, you
need to learn how to give without expectations and
So I might have given to others with a string attached
(26:06):
to if I do this, then I'll get this. Yeah. But
if I started to give without any expectation of anything in
return, I didn't have to get something from that person. But
maybe it would come in another way from another person. So this
notion of I'm worthy, and I have to allow that in, versus
a somebody would give me a compliment, like I, you know, kind of
(26:28):
pushing it away, receiving it very well dismissing it.
Because I'm like, maybe I'm trying to be humble, but it's not really humble. It's like, maybe
Yeah. Yeah. Pushing away. I see that in a lot of people I know. I
do that myself sometimes too. Oh my gosh. I'm resonating
with all the things you're saying and I've seen it in my son and in other
adult adoptees I know. And I think that your talk
(26:50):
here will resonate with a lot of people and I really appreciate you sharing it. What
advice do you have to other male adoptees? Maybe someone
like my kid that's 20. You know, a younger guy,
Well, your internal world has to be confusing. And
first of all, I appreciate that and validate that,
(27:11):
I guess. Second is that there is
help. You're not alone. So it is like it's okay
to ask for help. It's okay to not be okay. And
you're worthy. The messages, the lies, the limiting
beliefs that we might have in our heads based on maybe,
you know, trauma and other things that might have seemingly validated
(27:34):
those lies, because we get that confirmation bias. So being open
to receiving help to
asking for it. And if I would have anything to say
to my younger version, if I were 18, I'd be like, get
to know your inner world. And don't always
think that the outside is where you want to put your attention. So
(27:57):
we often want to blame, we often want to look for things outside
of ourselves. And I think getting to know yourself at
a really deep level, intimately, And don't
think that you know kind of what's going on inside there. There's a
lot of complex things going on. And it's like just
a willingness to peel back the layers if you
(28:22):
That is some really great advice. There's a lot in there
that people could work on and pick apart and I just really appreciate
you sharing your story and obviously everybody is
still on this trajectory of learning and growing and you're
not saying you figured everything out perfectly and you're still on
the path as all of us are and I really appreciate that. Is
there a way that people can get a hold of you or do you have other
(28:47):
Yeah, so I have a website, prodigalpathways.com. I'm
starting to do more blogging there and just sharing some
of my experience. I'm going through a life coaching course
right now, looking to get that certification, which is a
way for me to kind of help guide others and come alongside others
to take all of the experience I have and share that with
(29:09):
others to validate them and help them in their own journeys.
I'm also on LinkedIn, got a Facebook page, but
the Prodigal Pathways is the place where I'm going to put more of the content related
to this out on that. And so there's some things out there now, and there'll be more and
Okay, that's great. I'll put those links in the show notes in case anyone is
listening that's driving or unable to write that down right now. So
(29:31):
go look in the show notes, which are usually below the feed of
the podcast, or sometimes you have to like, swipe left
or right on your phone. So just find it somewhere around there. Is
No, I don't think so. The biggest thing is you're not alone.
And there is always light.
(29:52):
You know, sometimes it feels dark, but there's definitely light out
there. And I think getting into community with
others and not trying to do this on your own is
Oh yeah, that's huge. That is huge. And we do have the
community calendar on our website, unravelingadoption.com slash
(30:13):
calendar. There are tons of support groups. There's some just for
male adoptees and there are some for all adoptees and
some for all the constellation together and all sorts of different groups
and retreats and all sorts of things. So check that calendar out
if you're looking for support and let me know if you have anything
to add to that as well. Well, Tim, thank you so much. I
(30:33):
really appreciate you sharing your heart with us. You're doing great work. I
hope people come follow you on your blog page and on
your social media and just keep up with you. And thank you so much for being
Thank you. And I appreciate everything that you're doing. I think the more stories
that are out there also helps amplify this platform and
allows people to see that there is a expanding community
(30:57):
Yes, there is a lot of people out there that want to help. So
reach out. There's lots of support out there. So no one
is alone in this and we're all trying to help each other. So thank
you for joining me today. After you go check out
Tim's website, make sure and go look at unravelingadoption.com for
all sorts of resources and events and things that we have posted there. I
(31:19):
haven't talked about the book much lately. We wrote a book last
August called Adoption and Suicidality. We really
hope the book helps lots of people who are adopted or
who have adopted people in their lives, or birth parents for
that matter, because adoptees and birth parents have exponentially
higher rates of suicidality. So please check that
(31:41):
book out on Amazon if you are so inclined, Adoption
and Suicidality. And we really appreciate you helping spread
the word about the book to therapists and other families. And
also, if you've read it or listened to it, please write
a review on Goodreads or Amazon. That will help
a lot of other people find the book too. Please share this episode
(32:02):
with anyone you know who might be a male adoptee or might have
a male adoptee in their family or wants to just learn about how better
to support adoptees in general and to understand the
adopted experience. We really appreciate you listening in
today. Thanks for all your support. Tim and I want you
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