December 23, 2024 • 43 mins
"I didn't realize how strong I was until, you know, I got into therapy and started to understand all the things that I've overcome." - Ron Jenkins
Read the transcript of this episode here: https://app.swellai.com/t/tp_01JFJJKB7XP00HAV5P6H6ETQGJ
EPISODE SUMMARY:
In this episode of Unraveling Adoption, I had the privilege of speaking with Ron Jenkins, a remarkable individual whose journey through the complexities of foster care and adoption is both harrowing and inspiring. Ron's story begins with the tragic loss of his mother as a young child, leading him and his siblings into the foster care system. He was eventually adopted by a woman who, rather than providing a safe haven, exploited the system for drug money, resulting in a chaotic and violent environment.
Ron candidly shares the trauma he experienced, including the loss of several brothers to violence and the pervasive fear that defined his childhood. Despite these challenges, he made a conscious decision to steer clear of gangs and drugs, ultimately finding a mentor who changed the trajectory of his life. This mentor not only provided guidance but also became a father figure, helping Ron navigate his way to a football scholarship at Fresno State University.
Throughout our conversation, Ron emphasizes the importance of self-advocacy, therapy, and the need to break the cycle of trauma. He encourages listeners, especially men, to seek help and recognize that they deserve the same opportunities as anyone else. Ron's journey of healing and his commitment to helping at-risk youth through mentorship and advocacy work is truly inspiring.
We also touched on the impact of sexual abuse in Ron's life and how it shaped his relationships. He highlights the importance of addressing these issues through therapy, which has been instrumental in his healing process.
As we wrapped up, Ron shared exciting news about a movie being made about his life, and he invited anyone interested in supporting this project to reach out. This episode is a powerful reminder of resilience, the importance of community, and the potential for transformation, even in the face of overwhelming adversity. I hope Ron's story resonates with you and inspires you to seek help, advocate for yourself, and support others in their journeys.
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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
Stuyvesant. I'm an adoptive mom of a courageous and committed young
adult son, Joey, who is on his healing path. I'm
walking beside him while working on my own personal growth and healing. Joey
and I are committed to helping anyone impacted by adoption, and
(00:23):
we want to help the general public understand adoption's complexities better too.
I'm also a certified coach, helping seekers who want to move their
lives forward. Well, listeners, every once in a while you
hear a story of resilience and courage that kind of blows your
socks off. Well, today's guest, Ron
Jenkins, had a really rough childhood as
(00:44):
a fostered youth and an adoptee, but he's transformed his
challenges into service for others and his own personal
growth. I think he will blow your socks off and inspire you to
do your own work. That said, this episode has some
pretty serious conversations about some violent situations
and some sexual abuse. And it's just a pretty deep
(01:07):
and intense episode. So it might not be great if you are
struggling yourself with such things or if you have younger
ears listening. So just wanted to give you a heads up there. I
met Ron at a recent event in LA put on by Jeanette Yoffe from
the Celia Center. Ron and I struck up a conversation and
I knew I wanted to amplify his voice and share him with you all.
(01:28):
So welcome to Unraveling Adoption, Ron. I'm so glad to know you and
Good morning, Beth. Thank you for having me on Unraveling Adoption.
Yeah. There's so much complexity. It's not just a good
or bad, right? It's like so many layers, so many layers. Well,
(01:51):
whenever I have adoptees on the show, I always start by having them
share whatever parts of their adoption story they want to share. So what
Well, first of all, whatever I share, I hope that it's inspiring to
your listeners. I think that we share a common space
here and a specific space here. And I think our stories need
to be told. I think they need to be heard by those who are
(02:14):
in our spaces. So thank you for giving us this platform. Definitely.
My story began when my mother passed away. My mother passed
away when I was two years old. So I had two
other brothers and another sister. And obviously we were forced
into the foster care system. I was in the foster
care system from probably age two
(02:36):
to maybe seven or eight. OK. And then I
was adopted by a lady who shared
a friendship with my mother. Yes, this
was supposed to be a situation that was beneficial for
our wellbeing. And unfortunately, it didn't turn
out like that. The lady that adopted me,
(02:58):
my other brothers, not my sister, because she was older, she
went to another situation. But she adopted
me and my two brothers, and she chose to use
the funds that we were getting from the federal and state government
to buy drugs, to sell drugs. Now,
I guess her theory was more money makes a better situation. But
(03:24):
As a result of that, I have four brothers killed before I
was 23 years old. They were all in some
Oh, my gosh. Now, wait a second. Your adoptive mom also had other adopted
Yes. There were other kids adopted into that situation down
(03:48):
Let me see. So it's three of us,
Yes, she did. Like a business. Oh, right. Exactly. That's
a good word for it. A business. Yes. Sorry. And, you
know, and speaking of it as a business, the social worker who
(04:09):
approved these adoptions would be at our house on
Friday nights, party and drink and listen
to music. I didn't know this back then, but
you know, I'm thinking this was a sort of an adoption ring, you
know, where she was approving these adoptions and
my foster mom was getting the monies and she
(04:30):
was buying drugs to make more money. But the results
of that was devastating on the family, including
her own biological daughter was addicted to crack
cocaine. most of her middle-aged life, and
she served five years in state prison for strong-arm robbery
(04:51):
Oh my gosh. Did your adoptive mom ever get in trouble or did
No, you know what? There were run-ins with law enforcement, but
she never got in trouble. I remember one time there
was this lady who kind of like took the rap for her. I
think the police had come into the house and they did a raid
and they found drugs and another lady took the rap
(05:14):
Whoa, something happened there. Do you think people looked
at her and said, oh, she's taking care of all these children. What
a nice person she is. Do you think that affected law enforcement
and the social workers or was it just something else or luck?
I think that maybe people who didn't know thought that
she was doing a great job. You know, as a matter of fact, I'm
(05:36):
glad you bring that up. Like it's something that I've struggled with in the
past and something that I still struggle with today. It's like, you
know, why did she create this situation where
it looked like it was supposed to be helpful, but
yet it was ruining the lives of kids, innocent
kids? You know, we didn't ask to be in this situation. But
(05:58):
we were forced to have to deal with the consequences of it. Not
only the drug use, but there was a lot of violence. There was a
lot of aggressive behavior. There was an
incident where our house got robbed for drugs. And
the gentleman who robbed our house put a gun to a
two year old baby's head looking for drugs. And I
(06:18):
heard my little sister scream and I got up and ran in there. And
Oh, my God, that's so traumatizing. Yeah, once you bring drugs into a
situation, it just invites all sorts of other chaos and violence and
abuse and oh, terrible, terrible, terrible. I'm
You're exactly right. There was another situation where our
(06:40):
house was surrounded with doorman pinchers and Uzi
shotguns because her and Her and her buyer got
into a dispute. And as you just stated, you
know, when you involve drugs into a situation, you don't
know what's going to happen. And I could just remember us having
to lay under our beds while they were trying to
(07:00):
work this situation out. And thank God it worked out.
But yeah, some very fearful moments. as
a child, and I can look back on my journey
and see where that fear was instilled in me in certain
situations in my life. I didn't know it, but yes, that
(07:20):
situation took a lot out of who we were supposed to
Oh, yeah. Well, when you're a kid, you don't know the difference. Yeah. You don't
You know, that's a very interesting point. And I'm
an example that I didn't know that my situation was
any different than any other kids. You're conditioned to
(07:46):
And that's why so many kids end up incarcerated or
end up on drugs or using drugs or making
decisions that's not beneficial to their life, because Just
as a kid that grows up in a healthy household, learns
healthy behaviors, grows up to be a healthy adult, kids
who grow up in unhealthy environments grow up to be unhealthy people.
(08:11):
It's understandable. And you know, those kids that get tangled up
in that, I don't have judgment toward the kids. I mean, it's
a practically impossible situation. Now, did you get wrapped
up in drugs or gangs and violence and all that? Or how
Because I grew up in South LA, it was really hard to
avoid being in some type of association with gangs.
(08:34):
I was never officially jumped into a gang or
decided to be in a gang. However, I did have close, close
friends that were gang members and
I hung out with them, but I never claimed, I
never did anything to benefit that gang. because
that's what gangs are for. Gangs are established for
(08:56):
benefit, whether it's money, drugs, those
sorts of things. I knew better. I
knew that when it was time for them to do
the bad stuff, it was time for me to go. And
I'll just relate that experience to when I
was probably 11. I had an older brother who had decided
(09:17):
that he wanted to join the gangs. And I
think he was involved in a shooting. And when he
was 15, the police raided her house at like 2 a.m.
in the morning. They handcuffed him and took him to jail. And
I didn't see him for five years. So I would say that probably
had an effect on the decisions that I was going to make in
(09:37):
terms of involving myself in the type of behavior that
Yeah, that was at a crucial age, too. You were 11. So you're
starting to create your own identity and go, huh, that does
not look like a good idea. Right. So that
There was another incident that happened at 11. One
(10:00):
of my brothers, he was killed. One
night he left to go to the store and he
didn't return. And that next morning, my foster mother woke me up
and said, hey, he didn't come home. We have to go
look for him. at 2 a.m. in the morning and I
was sleepy and I was tired and she was like, what stores do
you guys go to? This was something that he would do frequently. He
(10:23):
would get up in the middle of the night and go get milk and cookies or
whatever. So I was tired and sleepy and she said,
let's get in the car, we have to go look for him. And we went to three
different liquor stores that we frequented. There was a fourth one
that we didn't go to because it was far away and I was sleepy and
I was tired I didn't even mention going to that one. And
(10:43):
unfortunately, that next morning, my mother got a call from
someone about an incident that happened behind this
other liquor store that we didn't visit. And we
got in a car and went down there. And yes, that's where
we found his body. He had been killed
by being stabbed over 50 times with an ice pick.
(11:06):
Yeah, it was a very gruesome sight. I think he
might have gotten mixed up with the wrong people and they forced
him to rob this liquor store and he got stuck
in the window and they couldn't get him out. So he wouldn't
tell on them. They stabbed him in his back 50 times
with an ice pick. And as an 11 year old, I
(11:26):
saw him deceased hanging out this window. Oh,
That's a horrible, horrible, tragic story. Goodness.
Well, that will certainly impact an 11 year old or any age
person. But at that precious age where you're
trying to figure out who you are and trying to make sense of
all this around you, do you remember consciously deciding, OK, this
(11:50):
is not going to be me? Do you remember kind of a decision?
At that point, I remember being fearful. I
remember being timid as a kid. I remember
wanting no problems with anyone. Yeah. You know, and
to this day, I thank God for giving me that balance, you
know, as a part of my DNA in terms of who I am and what I
(12:12):
stand for. I really, really
learned at a young age to protect myself. to
be an advocate for myself. And I think back and
I couldn't tell you why, but I knew that if
things were going to go right for me, I had to be in control of that. You
know, I had to take the steps to make that happen. You
(12:34):
know, I was a shy, quiet kid. I didn't say very much, but I saw
Yep. Right. Right. I was so trusted by
my foster mom that she would give me four
or five hundred dollars from the drug money to
hold. Whoa. Yes. Now, when I
turned 13 and I figured this out and I understood what
(12:57):
my role was, I refused to be
Yes. It created a tension in our relationship because
I specifically told her, no, I'm not holding drug
No, because I didn't really have any idea at
(13:18):
first about what it was. To me, I was
a trusted kid. I was the good kid, you know. And
then when I learned what this money was from
and what it was for, Then I had a chance to
make a decision. And how I learned is that one night I
woke up in the middle of the night and my foster mom and
(13:40):
her drug friends, they were counting drugs and
money on the table. And seeing this
and seeing it on TV gave me an understanding of
what was going on. So obviously I didn't burst
in there and say, what the hell is going on? I just
creeped back into my room and went to bed. And then the next time she
(14:01):
presented me with a situation to hold money, I told her, no,
I wasn't going to do that because I understood, you know, what was going on
Oh, wow. How long did you stay in
touch with your you sometimes call your foster mom, but she did adopt
OK, so for how long did you stay in touch with her? And is she still
(14:23):
Well, I'll just go back to how everything
took a turn. So when I was probably 13, some
friends and I, we were messing around with a BB gun in my backyard and
we end up shooting out a window across the street from where I
live. And the guy who lived there came to my
house and he told me that I was responsible for
(14:43):
shooting out his window. And I told him, well, I didn't shoot out the window. And
he says, well, you didn't, but you were with the guys who did it. and
you're going to pay for it. He was a contractor. So he told
me to come to his house that Saturday morning to pay off this
debt. And we went to this job site and
he was going to do a new bathroom remodel and he needed to
break down some walls and things. So he gave me a sledgehammer and
(15:07):
he said, hey, I'm going to go get tools and I need this wall down and that wall
down. And when I get back. And in my mind, I
was not keen on this thing. So I'm thinking if I break down
this wall, this whole house will fall down. Yeah. Yeah, really? Yeah.
But anyway, I did it and he came back and the wood was stacked up
to the side and he was like, oh, wow. And from
(15:28):
that day on, he became a mentor. Wow. Even
to the point where the lady's house that we was working on
She had known him for a long time. And she said, his name
was Mr. Burnett. And she said, Mr. Burnett, I've known you a long time and
I know you don't have a son this age. Who is this young man?
And he told her, this is my son. And
(15:51):
that right there just changed the elevation,
you know, of my life. here's this guy not even
knowing that I needed a father, that I needed a mentor, that
I needed somebody. And he showed up and became a
father figure. His wife became a parent as
well. And she would help me with my homework. And
(16:12):
then shortly after I started playing sports, when I got in high school,
after three years of being a bad football player, I
continued to play. into junior college. And then two
years later, I was getting a football scholarship to
Fresno State University. Nice. And I just want
to go back to an incident that happened when I was 13. My
(16:35):
foster mom was very violent and so was her biological daughter.
The ones who I explained to you that spend time in prison. Something
happened in the house and she hit me across my
face with a bare hand. Something that had happened many times
before. And she hit me so hard, all I could do was fall
to the ground and pray and ask God to
(16:56):
get me out of this situation. And here I was seven
years later, this situation happening, me getting this football scholarship
was the first time that I was able to leave that situation
and kind of make do for myself. And I really feel like God
heard my prayers and gave me room and
board and opportunity and education. to change my
(17:19):
life, and that's been what it's been ever since. And I'm
so grateful, you know, for this guy coming into my life
and seeing that, you know, I needed somebody other than
Yeah, because he could have come at you with anger or violence. You know,
you did wreck his window or your friend did or whatever. I mean,
he could have come at you so many different ways, but he came at you
(17:41):
with wanting to teach and help you help
you take accountability. He didn't just say, oh, well, it's OK, whatever
You're exactly right. And he told me that he goes, I'm not
going to call the police on you. I'm going to I'm going to help you with this
situation, you know. And I think his thinking was
(18:01):
that, you know, a lot of kids in that neighborhood were
being, you know, subjected to police violence and
drugs, gangs and things like that. And he felt like he
had an opportunity to show me something different. And he
did that. And it's become a part of me and why
I've chosen the path that I've chosen as well. He kind of
(18:25):
He paid it forward and now you're paying it forward. I know you do a lot of work to
Well, currently I'm retired, but I spent 31 years working
for the Department of Juvenile Justice. When I
graduated from Fresno State with a degree in social work, I took
a job at Fresno County Juvenile Hall as a counselor. My
(18:46):
work with kids there who had come from situations like mine.
When I was in college, I originally wanted to be a social worker because
I wanted to help kids that come from situations like mine. But
then I did an internship with Fresno County Probation Department. And
not only was the pay better, but I felt like these kids were
kids that I could get to and I could mentor by sharing my
(19:09):
experiences and sharing my story. You know, these kids
were the same type of kids that came out of situations that
I came out of. So I chose that career and it
has been very beneficial. I've been involved with helping
kids, you know, make changes to their lives that are beneficial
to this day. Nice. I've done Big Brothers, Big Sisters.
(19:31):
I've been a youth advocate. I'm a football coach now.
Sport in general has been very beneficial in
my life. The discipline, the structure, you know,
all those things that I didn't get in that home
growing up. were provided to me through sports and
the coaches that I came in contact with who showed
(19:54):
So you're doing that now with other kids that might be, I
bet you kind of gravitate towards the ones that are struggling or the ones that are
Yes, I want the kids sitting in the back of the room who isn't saying much.
The kid who has bottled up emotions and hasn't quite
learned how to navigate those emotions. Yeah. I want to talk to
(20:15):
that kid. I want to give him a voice. Yeah. I want to share my story
with that kid. and try to change some of those things
that are insecure to them or that doesn't give
You help them, I'm sure. That's amazing. If you were
a teenager again on some football team or if you were struggling, you
(20:38):
know, an at-risk youth now that you know what you know
You know what, I'm blessed to be able to say that I would do
everything that I did the same way. And the reason why
I say that is because, and I think I mentioned this earlier, I
protected myself. I really did. I avoided
those things that I knew would get me in trouble. Whether
(21:02):
it was joining the gang, doing drugs, all
of these things sat right in front of me and I had a choice to
make. But I made the choice to stay away
from those things. And I think the choice
that I made proved to be the difference in my life because
all my brothers chose to either be involved
(21:24):
in drugs and gangs. And they're not
here today because of those decisions. So
I am happy that I was able to
differentiate between what was good for me and what was bad for
me. And I think a lot of kids have a
problem with that because number one, it's either peer pressure,
(21:47):
or they just don't have the strength, or
they don't have what it takes to make decisions
that's conducive to good things happening in
their life. We are responsible for what happens
to us to a certain degree by the decisions we make or
the choices we make. And we have to be self
(22:08):
advocates. Nobody knows what we want more
than we do. And we have to break those
trust issues that we've got from our environments, whether
we were foster kids adopted. We have to break
those trust issues. And how we do that is that we
see people who are invested in our growth, which
(22:30):
would be teachers, pastors, therapists, counselors,
you know, those people that have a genuine concern for your
well-being. We have to trust those people and reach out
to them and understand that they have resources and
tools that we need to make it through our tough times.
And I see a lot of times kids that come from foster situations
(22:53):
or adoption situations, we don't quite have that
trust. And the only way we're going to get it
is if we reach back to those people who are reaching
Yeah, it takes a bit of discernment, doesn't it? To know which the
good adults are, which football coaches on my
side and which one, you know, there's there are some adults in
(23:14):
the community that would try to prey on kids like that, that are at
risk. So I suppose that kid would have to have some
discernment and, and listen to their body or listen to their kind
of their gut, right? Okay, is this person on my side? Or
I think the key is just to listen. Listen and
you'll get an idea of who's trying to help you and who's trying to
(23:37):
get over on you. That's one thing about us. We have this
sense. We can sense people that are
not good for us. And we can sense those that are
genuine in who they are. But sometimes we choose not
to trust any. That's the thing that we need to focus on.
We need to learn how to trust somebody. No
(24:01):
It's so tough for people who are adopted or fostered because, yeah, your
original parents, you know, broke
that trust for you. And so it's really hard
to overcome. And I suppose there's a bit of you have to just trust yourself at
a certain point and value yourself a little bit,
at least to start and know that you are worthy to have
(24:24):
a good life. I know watching my son and some other
adult adoptees, I know there is a sense of, Well, I'm not worth
anything anyway, so I might as well just kind of self-destruct here. But
there has to be some sort of grabbing on to
some sort of lifeline within yourself. And I'm
not sure how to get people to do that, but it seems like you
(24:46):
Well, it's a tough road. Yeah. I was in therapy one
time and the therapist told me, Ron, he says, you
deserve any and everything that everybody else deserves.
And I was like, Wow. No one's ever told me
And I stand here today and I say you deserve
(25:09):
everything that everybody else deserves or
has gotten. Yeah, definitely. How you get there is
to believe that and then to put a plan
of action in place to receive it.
We are no different than the kid who grows up in
a healthy family. who is treated fair and
(25:30):
gets everything that they need to survive. We're no different than
that kid. We just came about it a different way. But
it does not say we don't deserve everything that they have.
Now, our road is a little different, but
the road is for us. And how we get on
that road is we make a conscious decision to seek
(25:56):
I love that because I see people that are at
risk and struggling. They just sort of let life kind of throw them around.
It takes a bit of that self-advocacy. And I don't
know how to wake that up in people, but you seem to have
I think that's the trauma speaking right there. Yeah. Yeah,
for sure. Trauma will make you believe that if you were abused
(26:18):
in your home, then when you choose relationships, those
If you were nurtured and loved in your home,
then you're going to seek out nurturing and loving relationships. Yeah.
Yeah. If you were physically abused, then
(26:39):
you're going to seek out relationships or you're
going to think that that's OK. Yeah. But that's the trauma speaking.
Yes. And we have to work through therapy to
break those trauma bonds. And while we're talking about
this, I want to talk about therapy, because sometimes we
as men don't think that we need therapy
(27:01):
or we think that we're macho and we're big and we're bad. I'm
going to tell you something. I didn't really seek therapy until
really late in my life. And it is
the best thing that has ever happened to me
in terms of finding out not necessarily who
I am, but what things happen to me that
(27:24):
made me who I am, whether there were things in my childhood
that triggered me as an adult, that triggered me in relationships. And
let's keep in mind, I grew up in a very violent home with
a very violent female as a caretaker
or mother. And I didn't know that that
(27:45):
was going to affect my relationship with women throughout
my life. I didn't know that. But in understanding
that I've gone through two divorces. You know,
at some point you have to ask yourself, where's the problem?
Right. And there's nothing wrong with asking, is it me? And
(28:08):
then finding out the answers. The problem comes when you
say, no, it's not me, it's not me. But yet these things
continually happening in your life and then you don't seek
help for them. And then one day you're sitting in a
dark room by yourself with nobody there and you don't know why, you
know? So seeking therapy has taught me that
(28:29):
there was some trust issues that I had with women
coming out of this situation where my foster mom
put a knife to my throat and told me she'd kill me because I lost some
money. Or my abusive sister slapping
me across the face. Early on, a part of that was I
thought that that was OK. I thought, OK, this happened, but let's go
(28:54):
And I learned through therapy that I didn't become abusive or
anything like that. But at the same time, the
relationships that I was in, it was like, do I
really trust this relationship fully? And if I don't
trust this relationship fully, am I really giving all
of who I am? Sure. You're probably holding back. The answer was
(29:18):
And I learned that through therapy. But when we have these traumas, we
have to seek out resources and tools that
we can grow in those areas. Because if
you get left behind, then you're always left behind. When
you've gone through traumatic situations, you have to catch
up. Yeah. So I worked in the correctional facility and
(29:41):
it was constantly said that A kid who was
locked up at 15 turned 25, but yet a
lot of him was 15. Oh, yeah, for sure. Because that's when
his growth stopped. Sure. So he's behind and he
has to catch up, especially in his
Sure. Yeah. I think the same thing when people start using drugs, their
(30:02):
emotional growth stops. You know, if there's any sort of interruption
of adolescence, okay, well, you're not
growing up anymore. You're not like going to the school dances, and you're not dealing
with peers and doing regular fun things. You're
dealing with much bigger issues. And so your emotional growth
kind of puts a pause. And eventually, yeah, you got
(30:24):
Yes, it's a negative impact on those developmental stages that
we all go through. Yeah, we all go through developmental stages.
And when you have these things that happen, whether it's trauma, drug
or situations, you know, that are negative. Yes,
(30:46):
Yeah, I think that it's important that I share my experiences
with sexual abuse. When I was 10 years old, I
was sexually abused by a babysitter. And then when
I was a little bit older, I was sexually abused by a tutor,
both female. And these feelings had
been suppressed or they
(31:09):
had been not given enough attention.
As a matter of fact, the first time I was abused, my
foster mom ended up walking in
And I can remember we were driving somewhere in
(31:31):
Yeah. Yeah. But I bring those
situations up because I went
through life not really understanding what
Yep. You probably thought it was true. It was your fault, especially
I don't know if I bought that. OK, OK. I'll
(31:54):
just tell you the first time it happened with my babysitter
was 15 years old and I was 10. It was presented to
me as a game. Oh, you know, you
know, it was a game we were playing. So to me, it was
a game. And then the second situation, you
know, there was a party at my house and I was
(32:16):
in bed and this person comes and they're going to
spend a night and get in my bed. And the next thing I
know, they're telling me and asking me to do things. But
I bring this up because this well, I thought
that this had no bearing on me, obviously, because,
you know, when you're that young, you know, it's happening and you
(32:37):
don't understand why the manipulation and all
of that plays into those things. So when I'm
older and I get into relationships, as I stated, I was
divorced twice or a part of a divorce twice. The
first situation in which my divorce happened, you know,
we were young and it just kind of split up. But then the second situation,
(33:00):
I started to have some feelings about my place
in that relationship. And now that I know, now that
I've gone through counseling, those feelings were directly related
to the abuses that I had experienced as
I'm going to just be specific about it. For instance, when
(33:20):
you're abused, your sexual behaviors or
whatever are distorted in terms of what should
be normal and what's not normal. But I always hated
for women to be aggressive towards me because those
situations were aggressive towards me. So
that kind of played a role in how I was viewed
(33:42):
in that way. And then down the road, incident
happened at my job site where a supervisor was
sexually harassing me and. you
know, when it's a male being sexually harassed, it's
hard for us to go say, hey, I'm being sexually harassed because then
everybody's like, well, you know, you're the first person who
(34:03):
doesn't like that. You're the first male. You're the first male who
doesn't like that. But what that did was it
triggered what happened to me as a child. And
the reason why it triggered me was
because when I trying to
report it, I was viewed as
(34:27):
the problem. Shoot. And I
end up falling into some depression over
that. And I had to get back into
therapy. But only this time I
OK. Yeah. And the channel. Yeah. It comes around
(34:50):
Yes, knocking on the door until you deal with it. And these, these
are things that I didn't even know existed. I
just want to say that if you're a guy and you know, you've been sexually
abused either by male or female, then there
are some things inside you that you need to deal with. And
if you just take a look at your past, take a look at your track record and
(35:13):
see the situations that you've been involved in with either
male or female, that have not turned out right.
I think you need to look to those abusive situations and
get therapy and find out what you can do to correct some
Yeah, that's great advice. Yeah. Therapy is really, really
(35:33):
super important because it'll just keep coming back around and around and around
Right. Having worked in the anti human trafficking space,
I'm led to believe that a lot of the guys that
are the traffickers, they've been involved in abusive relationships
in their past, whether it was with the mother or the father, or
(35:59):
Yes, I agree. I think it just continues until somebody
says no more like you did. Right. Somebody has to say, stop.
Right. Yeah. But I think that the important thing to remember is
that First, we have to ask ourselves what situations have
we been involved in that may impact who we are. And
(36:21):
if those situations are not good, then yes, you
need to seek therapy or some type of treatment to deal with
those things. Don't think that it's not affecting you when you
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it comes out sideways sometimes if you don't
Yes. And the worst thing you can do is go through life blaming everybody else
(36:45):
Yeah, the blaming doesn't help anybody either. Yeah, you're a great example of
a path that people can take out of all that abuse. And
you found healing and you found a way out and you're
Not only have I found healing and a way out, but I found strength in
that. Yeah. I didn't realize how strong I was until,
(37:05):
you know, I got into therapy and started to understand all
the things that I've overcome. Therapy has
been a blessing to me. both conventional and
medication therapy. When I was going through depression, I had to
rely on medication therapy to stabilize me.
I'm not on any of that now, but it allowed me
(37:26):
to get back to normalcy and understand where I
was and who I needed to be and also faith. faith
in a higher power. That's something that's extremely important as
Yeah. Yeah. Everybody find what works for yourself. It may be
something different than what you grew up with, but find something bigger than
(37:46):
yourself. Yeah. Yeah. And I agree about the medication too, that sometimes
medication is necessary for the short term to help
I think people think that when you choose medication therapy is
something that you have to do for the rest of your life. No, that's
not the case. Sometimes you need medication therapy
(38:07):
to work you through a period to where you can get back to some
normalcy. Because the big picture is, is that your
brain chemicals are off. And that's what's making you feel
lonely and lost and all these kind of things. And
the medication therapy allows you to balance everything
out, thus allowing you, well, for me, allow
(38:29):
me to see what my true reality was. Yeah.
You know, again. Yeah. I had reality. Then
And medication therapy allowed me to reconnect with
Unraveling things. Totally. Well,
(38:53):
your story is very impactful. You have really,
God, your childhood was really terrible, Ron.
It was really, really terrible. And you are
a beacon standing out for other people. that
have had traumatic childhoods or difficult things or separations from
their parents. And you're saying you can survive this,
(39:17):
you can even thrive, and you can turn it around and help other people.
So, gosh, I really admire what you're doing. I
admire that core of who you are that cared about
yourself enough to get yourself to safety. And bravo, and
thank you for all the work you're doing in the community. Is there any
any last words or anything else that you wanted to say before we close up?
(39:39):
Oh, yes. I just want to pitch a book. It's
called Runaway Girl, and it's by Carissa Phelps.
She's the young lady who I worked with when I was working at Juno
Hall. She was a runaway that was forced into
prostitution or human trafficking. And
she's now a world renowned lawyer in that field. If
(40:02):
there's anyone out there who's struggling in that area, this book called
Runaway Girl will be a great book to read to get some
inspiration for how to come out of that. And you can also
go to runawaygirl.com if you have any questions in
that area. Other things to my brothers, to my male
friends out there, hey, seek counseling, seek therapy. I
(40:23):
guarantee there's something for you in that space. And
I just want to thank you, Beth, for allowing me to share my story.
And I hope that it inspires somebody that I probably never
will meet. And if anybody has any questions, do
you want to talk? I'm open for mentorship. I'm open for
(40:52):
Okay, I'll put that in the show notes along with
runawaygirl.com in the book. And there's also I'll
put those videos you sent me with you and Carissa and the
expose they did about you at Fresno State. Right. I'll put some
of the short videos in there and go ahead and make contact with
Ron. He's amazing. And if anyone wants to send
(41:14):
One more thing. There is currently a
movie being written on my life. And it's
going to be due out probably in the next year
or two. I can't give away the title, but
Oh my gosh. Okay. As soon as it's out, you let me know and I'll update our audience
with that. And I'll put the updated link in the show notes and things like
(41:36):
that. That sounds amazing. Wow. Is it a
Wow. How exciting. Do you need any support for
(41:57):
OK, so just email you. Yes. Well, and we'll definitely help
spread the word and just let us know how we can help when that comes out. Your story
Yeah. Well, thank you, Ron. Thanks for coming on. I'm so glad I met you at
the Celia Center event. And we'll continue collaborating and
(42:17):
I am so excited about this, and I'm glad
that we could find each other at that event and share
some conversation. And I really appreciate you
giving me this opportunity to be on Unraveling Podcast.
Oh, you're very welcome, Ron. Thank you. Thank you very much. Make
(42:37):
sure and go check out all of Ron's resources. And while
you're on the internet, go look up unravelingadoption.com. We
have lots of events and lots of free resources on our website. So
check out all that we have there. I also wanted to remind you, we
really appreciate it whenever you can review our podcast.
on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And
(43:00):
also our book that we have out called Adoption and Suicidality. It
could use a little more love on Amazon and Goodreads if
you would like to either rate or rate and review it on
either of those platforms. We really appreciate all of your support. Those
reviews do go a long way to helping others be able to
find us. Thank you all for listening to this episode. Make
(43:21):
sure and share it with somebody that you know that would love to hear Ron's
story or who might need to be inspired by his story. Ron
Welcome to this episode of Unraveling Adoption, an intentional space
to delve into adoption's complexities together. I'm Beth
Stuyvesant. I'm an adoptive mom of a courageous and committed young
adult son, Joey, who is on his healing path. I'm
walking beside him while working on my own personal growth and healing. Joey
and I are committed to helping anyone impacted by adoption, and
(00:23):
we want to help the general public understand adoption's complexities better too.
I'm also a certified coach, helping seekers who want to move their
lives forward. Well, listeners, every once in a while you
hear a story of resilience and courage that kind of blows your
socks off. Well, today's guest, Ron
Jenkins, had a really rough childhood as
(00:44):
a fostered youth and an adoptee, but he's transformed his
challenges into service for others and his own personal
growth. I think he will blow your socks off and inspire you to
do your own work. That said, this episode has some
pretty serious conversations about some violent situations
and some sexual abuse. And it's just a pretty deep
(01:07):
and intense episode. So it might not be great if you are
struggling yourself with such things or if you have younger
ears listening. So just wanted to give you a heads up there. I
met Ron at a recent event in LA put on by Jeanette Yoffe from
the Celia Center. Ron and I struck up a conversation and
I knew I wanted to amplify his voice and share him with you all.
(01:28):
So welcome to Unraveling Adoption, Ron. I'm so glad to know you and
Good morning, Beth. Thank you for having me on Unraveling Adoption.
Yeah. There's so much complexity. It's not just a good
or bad, right? It's like so many layers, so many layers. Well,
(01:51):
whenever I have adoptees on the show, I always start by having them
share whatever parts of their adoption story they want to share. So what
Well, first of all, whatever I share, I hope that it's inspiring to
your listeners. I think that we share a common space
here and a specific space here. And I think our stories need
to be told. I think they need to be heard by those who are
(02:14):
in our spaces. So thank you for giving us this platform. Definitely.
My story began when my mother passed away. My mother passed
away when I was two years old. So I had two
other brothers and another sister. And obviously we were forced
into the foster care system. I was in the foster
care system from probably age two
(02:36):
to maybe seven or eight. OK. And then I
was adopted by a lady who shared
a friendship with my mother. Yes, this
was supposed to be a situation that was beneficial for
our wellbeing. And unfortunately, it didn't turn
out like that. The lady that adopted me,
(02:58):
my other brothers, not my sister, because she was older, she
went to another situation. But she adopted
me and my two brothers, and she chose to use
the funds that we were getting from the federal and state government
to buy drugs, to sell drugs. Now,
I guess her theory was more money makes a better situation. But
(03:24):
As a result of that, I have four brothers killed before I
was 23 years old. They were all in some
Oh, my gosh. Now, wait a second. Your adoptive mom also had other adopted
Yes. There were other kids adopted into that situation down
(03:48):
Let me see. So it's three of us,
Yes, she did. Like a business. Oh, right. Exactly. That's
a good word for it. A business. Yes. Sorry. And, you
know, and speaking of it as a business, the social worker who
(04:09):
approved these adoptions would be at our house on
Friday nights, party and drink and listen
to music. I didn't know this back then, but
you know, I'm thinking this was a sort of an adoption ring, you
know, where she was approving these adoptions and
my foster mom was getting the monies and she
(04:30):
was buying drugs to make more money. But the results
of that was devastating on the family, including
her own biological daughter was addicted to crack
cocaine. most of her middle-aged life, and
she served five years in state prison for strong-arm robbery
(04:51):
Oh my gosh. Did your adoptive mom ever get in trouble or did
No, you know what? There were run-ins with law enforcement, but
she never got in trouble. I remember one time there
was this lady who kind of like took the rap for her. I
think the police had come into the house and they did a raid
and they found drugs and another lady took the rap
(05:14):
Whoa, something happened there. Do you think people looked
at her and said, oh, she's taking care of all these children. What
a nice person she is. Do you think that affected law enforcement
and the social workers or was it just something else or luck?
I think that maybe people who didn't know thought that
she was doing a great job. You know, as a matter of fact, I'm
(05:36):
glad you bring that up. Like it's something that I've struggled with in the
past and something that I still struggle with today. It's like, you
know, why did she create this situation where
it looked like it was supposed to be helpful, but
yet it was ruining the lives of kids, innocent
kids? You know, we didn't ask to be in this situation. But
(05:58):
we were forced to have to deal with the consequences of it. Not
only the drug use, but there was a lot of violence. There was a
lot of aggressive behavior. There was an
incident where our house got robbed for drugs. And
the gentleman who robbed our house put a gun to a
two year old baby's head looking for drugs. And I
(06:18):
heard my little sister scream and I got up and ran in there. And
Oh, my God, that's so traumatizing. Yeah, once you bring drugs into a
situation, it just invites all sorts of other chaos and violence and
abuse and oh, terrible, terrible, terrible. I'm
You're exactly right. There was another situation where our
(06:40):
house was surrounded with doorman pinchers and Uzi
shotguns because her and Her and her buyer got
into a dispute. And as you just stated, you
know, when you involve drugs into a situation, you don't
know what's going to happen. And I could just remember us having
to lay under our beds while they were trying to
(07:00):
work this situation out. And thank God it worked out.
But yeah, some very fearful moments. as
a child, and I can look back on my journey
and see where that fear was instilled in me in certain
situations in my life. I didn't know it, but yes, that
(07:20):
situation took a lot out of who we were supposed to
Oh, yeah. Well, when you're a kid, you don't know the difference. Yeah. You don't
You know, that's a very interesting point. And I'm
an example that I didn't know that my situation was
any different than any other kids. You're conditioned to
(07:46):
And that's why so many kids end up incarcerated or
end up on drugs or using drugs or making
decisions that's not beneficial to their life, because Just
as a kid that grows up in a healthy household, learns
healthy behaviors, grows up to be a healthy adult, kids
who grow up in unhealthy environments grow up to be unhealthy people.
(08:11):
It's understandable. And you know, those kids that get tangled up
in that, I don't have judgment toward the kids. I mean, it's
a practically impossible situation. Now, did you get wrapped
up in drugs or gangs and violence and all that? Or how
Because I grew up in South LA, it was really hard to
avoid being in some type of association with gangs.
(08:34):
I was never officially jumped into a gang or
decided to be in a gang. However, I did have close, close
friends that were gang members and
I hung out with them, but I never claimed, I
never did anything to benefit that gang. because
that's what gangs are for. Gangs are established for
(08:56):
benefit, whether it's money, drugs, those
sorts of things. I knew better. I
knew that when it was time for them to do
the bad stuff, it was time for me to go. And
I'll just relate that experience to when I
was probably 11. I had an older brother who had decided
(09:17):
that he wanted to join the gangs. And I
think he was involved in a shooting. And when he
was 15, the police raided her house at like 2 a.m.
in the morning. They handcuffed him and took him to jail. And
I didn't see him for five years. So I would say that probably
had an effect on the decisions that I was going to make in
(09:37):
terms of involving myself in the type of behavior that
Yeah, that was at a crucial age, too. You were 11. So you're
starting to create your own identity and go, huh, that does
not look like a good idea. Right. So that
There was another incident that happened at 11. One
(10:00):
of my brothers, he was killed. One
night he left to go to the store and he
didn't return. And that next morning, my foster mother woke me up
and said, hey, he didn't come home. We have to go
look for him. at 2 a.m. in the morning and I
was sleepy and I was tired and she was like, what stores do
you guys go to? This was something that he would do frequently. He
(10:23):
would get up in the middle of the night and go get milk and cookies or
whatever. So I was tired and sleepy and she said,
let's get in the car, we have to go look for him. And we went to three
different liquor stores that we frequented. There was a fourth one
that we didn't go to because it was far away and I was sleepy and
I was tired I didn't even mention going to that one. And
(10:43):
unfortunately, that next morning, my mother got a call from
someone about an incident that happened behind this
other liquor store that we didn't visit. And we
got in a car and went down there. And yes, that's where
we found his body. He had been killed
by being stabbed over 50 times with an ice pick.
(11:06):
Yeah, it was a very gruesome sight. I think he
might have gotten mixed up with the wrong people and they forced
him to rob this liquor store and he got stuck
in the window and they couldn't get him out. So he wouldn't
tell on them. They stabbed him in his back 50 times
with an ice pick. And as an 11 year old, I
(11:26):
saw him deceased hanging out this window. Oh,
That's a horrible, horrible, tragic story. Goodness.
Well, that will certainly impact an 11 year old or any age
person. But at that precious age where you're
trying to figure out who you are and trying to make sense of
all this around you, do you remember consciously deciding, OK, this
(11:50):
is not going to be me? Do you remember kind of a decision?
At that point, I remember being fearful. I
remember being timid as a kid. I remember
wanting no problems with anyone. Yeah. You know, and
to this day, I thank God for giving me that balance, you
know, as a part of my DNA in terms of who I am and what I
(12:12):
stand for. I really, really
learned at a young age to protect myself. to
be an advocate for myself. And I think back and
I couldn't tell you why, but I knew that if
things were going to go right for me, I had to be in control of that. You
know, I had to take the steps to make that happen. You
(12:34):
know, I was a shy, quiet kid. I didn't say very much, but I saw
Yep. Right. Right. I was so trusted by
my foster mom that she would give me four
or five hundred dollars from the drug money to
hold. Whoa. Yes. Now, when I
turned 13 and I figured this out and I understood what
(12:57):
my role was, I refused to be
Yes. It created a tension in our relationship because
I specifically told her, no, I'm not holding drug
No, because I didn't really have any idea at
(13:18):
first about what it was. To me, I was
a trusted kid. I was the good kid, you know. And
then when I learned what this money was from
and what it was for, Then I had a chance to
make a decision. And how I learned is that one night I
woke up in the middle of the night and my foster mom and
(13:40):
her drug friends, they were counting drugs and
money on the table. And seeing this
and seeing it on TV gave me an understanding of
what was going on. So obviously I didn't burst
in there and say, what the hell is going on? I just
creeped back into my room and went to bed. And then the next time she
(14:01):
presented me with a situation to hold money, I told her, no,
I wasn't going to do that because I understood, you know, what was going on
Oh, wow. How long did you stay in
touch with your you sometimes call your foster mom, but she did adopt
OK, so for how long did you stay in touch with her? And is she still
(14:23):
Well, I'll just go back to how everything
took a turn. So when I was probably 13, some
friends and I, we were messing around with a BB gun in my backyard and
we end up shooting out a window across the street from where I
live. And the guy who lived there came to my
house and he told me that I was responsible for
(14:43):
shooting out his window. And I told him, well, I didn't shoot out the window. And
he says, well, you didn't, but you were with the guys who did it. and
you're going to pay for it. He was a contractor. So he told
me to come to his house that Saturday morning to pay off this
debt. And we went to this job site and
he was going to do a new bathroom remodel and he needed to
break down some walls and things. So he gave me a sledgehammer and
(15:07):
he said, hey, I'm going to go get tools and I need this wall down and that wall
down. And when I get back. And in my mind, I
was not keen on this thing. So I'm thinking if I break down
this wall, this whole house will fall down. Yeah. Yeah, really? Yeah.
But anyway, I did it and he came back and the wood was stacked up
to the side and he was like, oh, wow. And from
(15:28):
that day on, he became a mentor. Wow. Even
to the point where the lady's house that we was working on
She had known him for a long time. And she said, his name
was Mr. Burnett. And she said, Mr. Burnett, I've known you a long time and
I know you don't have a son this age. Who is this young man?
And he told her, this is my son. And
(15:51):
that right there just changed the elevation,
you know, of my life. here's this guy not even
knowing that I needed a father, that I needed a mentor, that
I needed somebody. And he showed up and became a
father figure. His wife became a parent as
well. And she would help me with my homework. And
(16:12):
then shortly after I started playing sports, when I got in high school,
after three years of being a bad football player, I
continued to play. into junior college. And then two
years later, I was getting a football scholarship to
Fresno State University. Nice. And I just want
to go back to an incident that happened when I was 13. My
(16:35):
foster mom was very violent and so was her biological daughter.
The ones who I explained to you that spend time in prison. Something
happened in the house and she hit me across my
face with a bare hand. Something that had happened many times
before. And she hit me so hard, all I could do was fall
to the ground and pray and ask God to
(16:56):
get me out of this situation. And here I was seven
years later, this situation happening, me getting this football scholarship
was the first time that I was able to leave that situation
and kind of make do for myself. And I really feel like God
heard my prayers and gave me room and
board and opportunity and education. to change my
(17:19):
life, and that's been what it's been ever since. And I'm
so grateful, you know, for this guy coming into my life
and seeing that, you know, I needed somebody other than
Yeah, because he could have come at you with anger or violence. You know,
you did wreck his window or your friend did or whatever. I mean,
he could have come at you so many different ways, but he came at you
(17:41):
with wanting to teach and help you help
you take accountability. He didn't just say, oh, well, it's OK, whatever
You're exactly right. And he told me that he goes, I'm not
going to call the police on you. I'm going to I'm going to help you with this
situation, you know. And I think his thinking was
(18:01):
that, you know, a lot of kids in that neighborhood were
being, you know, subjected to police violence and
drugs, gangs and things like that. And he felt like he
had an opportunity to show me something different. And he
did that. And it's become a part of me and why
I've chosen the path that I've chosen as well. He kind of
(18:25):
He paid it forward and now you're paying it forward. I know you do a lot of work to
Well, currently I'm retired, but I spent 31 years working
for the Department of Juvenile Justice. When I
graduated from Fresno State with a degree in social work, I took
a job at Fresno County Juvenile Hall as a counselor. My
(18:46):
work with kids there who had come from situations like mine.
When I was in college, I originally wanted to be a social worker because
I wanted to help kids that come from situations like mine. But
then I did an internship with Fresno County Probation Department. And
not only was the pay better, but I felt like these kids were
kids that I could get to and I could mentor by sharing my
(19:09):
experiences and sharing my story. You know, these kids
were the same type of kids that came out of situations that
I came out of. So I chose that career and it
has been very beneficial. I've been involved with helping
kids, you know, make changes to their lives that are beneficial
to this day. Nice. I've done Big Brothers, Big Sisters.
(19:31):
I've been a youth advocate. I'm a football coach now.
Sport in general has been very beneficial in
my life. The discipline, the structure, you know,
all those things that I didn't get in that home
growing up. were provided to me through sports and
the coaches that I came in contact with who showed
(19:54):
So you're doing that now with other kids that might be, I
bet you kind of gravitate towards the ones that are struggling or the ones that are
Yes, I want the kids sitting in the back of the room who isn't saying much.
The kid who has bottled up emotions and hasn't quite
learned how to navigate those emotions. Yeah. I want to talk to
(20:15):
that kid. I want to give him a voice. Yeah. I want to share my story
with that kid. and try to change some of those things
that are insecure to them or that doesn't give
You help them, I'm sure. That's amazing. If you were
a teenager again on some football team or if you were struggling, you
(20:38):
know, an at-risk youth now that you know what you know
You know what, I'm blessed to be able to say that I would do
everything that I did the same way. And the reason why
I say that is because, and I think I mentioned this earlier, I
protected myself. I really did. I avoided
those things that I knew would get me in trouble. Whether
(21:02):
it was joining the gang, doing drugs, all
of these things sat right in front of me and I had a choice to
make. But I made the choice to stay away
from those things. And I think the choice
that I made proved to be the difference in my life because
all my brothers chose to either be involved
(21:24):
in drugs and gangs. And they're not
here today because of those decisions. So
I am happy that I was able to
differentiate between what was good for me and what was bad for
me. And I think a lot of kids have a
problem with that because number one, it's either peer pressure,
(21:47):
or they just don't have the strength, or
they don't have what it takes to make decisions
that's conducive to good things happening in
their life. We are responsible for what happens
to us to a certain degree by the decisions we make or
the choices we make. And we have to be self
(22:08):
advocates. Nobody knows what we want more
than we do. And we have to break those
trust issues that we've got from our environments, whether
we were foster kids adopted. We have to break
those trust issues. And how we do that is that we
see people who are invested in our growth, which
(22:30):
would be teachers, pastors, therapists, counselors,
you know, those people that have a genuine concern for your
well-being. We have to trust those people and reach out
to them and understand that they have resources and
tools that we need to make it through our tough times.
And I see a lot of times kids that come from foster situations
(22:53):
or adoption situations, we don't quite have that
trust. And the only way we're going to get it
is if we reach back to those people who are reaching
Yeah, it takes a bit of discernment, doesn't it? To know which the
good adults are, which football coaches on my
side and which one, you know, there's there are some adults in
(23:14):
the community that would try to prey on kids like that, that are at
risk. So I suppose that kid would have to have some
discernment and, and listen to their body or listen to their kind
of their gut, right? Okay, is this person on my side? Or
I think the key is just to listen. Listen and
you'll get an idea of who's trying to help you and who's trying to
(23:37):
get over on you. That's one thing about us. We have this
sense. We can sense people that are
not good for us. And we can sense those that are
genuine in who they are. But sometimes we choose not
to trust any. That's the thing that we need to focus on.
We need to learn how to trust somebody. No
(24:01):
It's so tough for people who are adopted or fostered because, yeah, your
original parents, you know, broke
that trust for you. And so it's really hard
to overcome. And I suppose there's a bit of you have to just trust yourself at
a certain point and value yourself a little bit,
at least to start and know that you are worthy to have
(24:24):
a good life. I know watching my son and some other
adult adoptees, I know there is a sense of, Well, I'm not worth
anything anyway, so I might as well just kind of self-destruct here. But
there has to be some sort of grabbing on to
some sort of lifeline within yourself. And I'm
not sure how to get people to do that, but it seems like you
(24:46):
Well, it's a tough road. Yeah. I was in therapy one
time and the therapist told me, Ron, he says, you
deserve any and everything that everybody else deserves.
And I was like, Wow. No one's ever told me
And I stand here today and I say you deserve
(25:09):
everything that everybody else deserves or
has gotten. Yeah, definitely. How you get there is
to believe that and then to put a plan
of action in place to receive it.
We are no different than the kid who grows up in
a healthy family. who is treated fair and
(25:30):
gets everything that they need to survive. We're no different than
that kid. We just came about it a different way. But
it does not say we don't deserve everything that they have.
Now, our road is a little different, but
the road is for us. And how we get on
that road is we make a conscious decision to seek
(25:56):
I love that because I see people that are at
risk and struggling. They just sort of let life kind of throw them around.
It takes a bit of that self-advocacy. And I don't
know how to wake that up in people, but you seem to have
I think that's the trauma speaking right there. Yeah. Yeah,
for sure. Trauma will make you believe that if you were abused
(26:18):
in your home, then when you choose relationships, those
If you were nurtured and loved in your home,
then you're going to seek out nurturing and loving relationships. Yeah.
Yeah. If you were physically abused, then
(26:39):
you're going to seek out relationships or you're
going to think that that's OK. Yeah. But that's the trauma speaking.
Yes. And we have to work through therapy to
break those trauma bonds. And while we're talking about
this, I want to talk about therapy, because sometimes we
as men don't think that we need therapy
(27:01):
or we think that we're macho and we're big and we're bad. I'm
going to tell you something. I didn't really seek therapy until
really late in my life. And it is
the best thing that has ever happened to me
in terms of finding out not necessarily who
I am, but what things happen to me that
(27:24):
made me who I am, whether there were things in my childhood
that triggered me as an adult, that triggered me in relationships. And
let's keep in mind, I grew up in a very violent home with
a very violent female as a caretaker
or mother. And I didn't know that that
(27:45):
was going to affect my relationship with women throughout
my life. I didn't know that. But in understanding
that I've gone through two divorces. You know,
at some point you have to ask yourself, where's the problem?
Right. And there's nothing wrong with asking, is it me? And
(28:08):
then finding out the answers. The problem comes when you
say, no, it's not me, it's not me. But yet these things
continually happening in your life and then you don't seek
help for them. And then one day you're sitting in a
dark room by yourself with nobody there and you don't know why, you
know? So seeking therapy has taught me that
(28:29):
there was some trust issues that I had with women
coming out of this situation where my foster mom
put a knife to my throat and told me she'd kill me because I lost some
money. Or my abusive sister slapping
me across the face. Early on, a part of that was I
thought that that was OK. I thought, OK, this happened, but let's go
(28:54):
And I learned through therapy that I didn't become abusive or
anything like that. But at the same time, the
relationships that I was in, it was like, do I
really trust this relationship fully? And if I don't
trust this relationship fully, am I really giving all
of who I am? Sure. You're probably holding back. The answer was
(29:18):
And I learned that through therapy. But when we have these traumas, we
have to seek out resources and tools that
we can grow in those areas. Because if
you get left behind, then you're always left behind. When
you've gone through traumatic situations, you have to catch
up. Yeah. So I worked in the correctional facility and
(29:41):
it was constantly said that A kid who was
locked up at 15 turned 25, but yet a
lot of him was 15. Oh, yeah, for sure. Because that's when
his growth stopped. Sure. So he's behind and he
has to catch up, especially in his
Sure. Yeah. I think the same thing when people start using drugs, their
(30:02):
emotional growth stops. You know, if there's any sort of interruption
of adolescence, okay, well, you're not
growing up anymore. You're not like going to the school dances, and you're not dealing
with peers and doing regular fun things. You're
dealing with much bigger issues. And so your emotional growth
kind of puts a pause. And eventually, yeah, you got
(30:24):
Yes, it's a negative impact on those developmental stages that
we all go through. Yeah, we all go through developmental stages.
And when you have these things that happen, whether it's trauma, drug
or situations, you know, that are negative. Yes,
(30:46):
Yeah, I think that it's important that I share my experiences
with sexual abuse. When I was 10 years old, I
was sexually abused by a babysitter. And then when
I was a little bit older, I was sexually abused by a tutor,
both female. And these feelings had
been suppressed or they
(31:09):
had been not given enough attention.
As a matter of fact, the first time I was abused, my
foster mom ended up walking in
And I can remember we were driving somewhere in
(31:31):
Yeah. Yeah. But I bring those
situations up because I went
through life not really understanding what
Yep. You probably thought it was true. It was your fault, especially
I don't know if I bought that. OK, OK. I'll
(31:54):
just tell you the first time it happened with my babysitter
was 15 years old and I was 10. It was presented to
me as a game. Oh, you know, you
know, it was a game we were playing. So to me, it was
a game. And then the second situation, you
know, there was a party at my house and I was
(32:16):
in bed and this person comes and they're going to
spend a night and get in my bed. And the next thing I
know, they're telling me and asking me to do things. But
I bring this up because this well, I thought
that this had no bearing on me, obviously, because,
you know, when you're that young, you know, it's happening and you
(32:37):
don't understand why the manipulation and all
of that plays into those things. So when I'm
older and I get into relationships, as I stated, I was
divorced twice or a part of a divorce twice. The
first situation in which my divorce happened, you know,
we were young and it just kind of split up. But then the second situation,
(33:00):
I started to have some feelings about my place
in that relationship. And now that I know, now that
I've gone through counseling, those feelings were directly related
to the abuses that I had experienced as
I'm going to just be specific about it. For instance, when
(33:20):
you're abused, your sexual behaviors or
whatever are distorted in terms of what should
be normal and what's not normal. But I always hated
for women to be aggressive towards me because those
situations were aggressive towards me. So
that kind of played a role in how I was viewed
(33:42):
in that way. And then down the road, incident
happened at my job site where a supervisor was
sexually harassing me and. you
know, when it's a male being sexually harassed, it's
hard for us to go say, hey, I'm being sexually harassed because then
everybody's like, well, you know, you're the first person who
(34:03):
doesn't like that. You're the first male. You're the first male who
doesn't like that. But what that did was it
triggered what happened to me as a child. And
the reason why it triggered me was
because when I trying to
report it, I was viewed as
(34:27):
the problem. Shoot. And I
end up falling into some depression over
that. And I had to get back into
therapy. But only this time I
OK. Yeah. And the channel. Yeah. It comes around
(34:50):
Yes, knocking on the door until you deal with it. And these, these
are things that I didn't even know existed. I
just want to say that if you're a guy and you know, you've been sexually
abused either by male or female, then there
are some things inside you that you need to deal with. And
if you just take a look at your past, take a look at your track record and
(35:13):
see the situations that you've been involved in with either
male or female, that have not turned out right.
I think you need to look to those abusive situations and
get therapy and find out what you can do to correct some
Yeah, that's great advice. Yeah. Therapy is really, really
(35:33):
super important because it'll just keep coming back around and around and around
Right. Having worked in the anti human trafficking space,
I'm led to believe that a lot of the guys that
are the traffickers, they've been involved in abusive relationships
in their past, whether it was with the mother or the father, or
(35:59):
Yes, I agree. I think it just continues until somebody
says no more like you did. Right. Somebody has to say, stop.
Right. Yeah. But I think that the important thing to remember is
that First, we have to ask ourselves what situations have
we been involved in that may impact who we are. And
(36:21):
if those situations are not good, then yes, you
need to seek therapy or some type of treatment to deal with
those things. Don't think that it's not affecting you when you
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it comes out sideways sometimes if you don't
Yes. And the worst thing you can do is go through life blaming everybody else
(36:45):
Yeah, the blaming doesn't help anybody either. Yeah, you're a great example of
a path that people can take out of all that abuse. And
you found healing and you found a way out and you're
Not only have I found healing and a way out, but I found strength in
that. Yeah. I didn't realize how strong I was until,
(37:05):
you know, I got into therapy and started to understand all
the things that I've overcome. Therapy has
been a blessing to me. both conventional and
medication therapy. When I was going through depression, I had to
rely on medication therapy to stabilize me.
I'm not on any of that now, but it allowed me
(37:26):
to get back to normalcy and understand where I
was and who I needed to be and also faith. faith
in a higher power. That's something that's extremely important as
Yeah. Yeah. Everybody find what works for yourself. It may be
something different than what you grew up with, but find something bigger than
(37:46):
yourself. Yeah. Yeah. And I agree about the medication too, that sometimes
medication is necessary for the short term to help
I think people think that when you choose medication therapy is
something that you have to do for the rest of your life. No, that's
not the case. Sometimes you need medication therapy
(38:07):
to work you through a period to where you can get back to some
normalcy. Because the big picture is, is that your
brain chemicals are off. And that's what's making you feel
lonely and lost and all these kind of things. And
the medication therapy allows you to balance everything
out, thus allowing you, well, for me, allow
(38:29):
me to see what my true reality was. Yeah.
You know, again. Yeah. I had reality. Then
And medication therapy allowed me to reconnect with
Unraveling things. Totally. Well,
(38:53):
your story is very impactful. You have really,
God, your childhood was really terrible, Ron.
It was really, really terrible. And you are
a beacon standing out for other people. that
have had traumatic childhoods or difficult things or separations from
their parents. And you're saying you can survive this,
(39:17):
you can even thrive, and you can turn it around and help other people.
So, gosh, I really admire what you're doing. I
admire that core of who you are that cared about
yourself enough to get yourself to safety. And bravo, and
thank you for all the work you're doing in the community. Is there any
any last words or anything else that you wanted to say before we close up?
(39:39):
Oh, yes. I just want to pitch a book. It's
called Runaway Girl, and it's by Carissa Phelps.
She's the young lady who I worked with when I was working at Juno
Hall. She was a runaway that was forced into
prostitution or human trafficking. And
she's now a world renowned lawyer in that field. If
(40:02):
there's anyone out there who's struggling in that area, this book called
Runaway Girl will be a great book to read to get some
inspiration for how to come out of that. And you can also
go to runawaygirl.com if you have any questions in
that area. Other things to my brothers, to my male
friends out there, hey, seek counseling, seek therapy. I
(40:23):
guarantee there's something for you in that space. And
I just want to thank you, Beth, for allowing me to share my story.
And I hope that it inspires somebody that I probably never
will meet. And if anybody has any questions, do
you want to talk? I'm open for mentorship. I'm open for
(40:52):
Okay, I'll put that in the show notes along with
runawaygirl.com in the book. And there's also I'll
put those videos you sent me with you and Carissa and the
expose they did about you at Fresno State. Right. I'll put some
of the short videos in there and go ahead and make contact with
Ron. He's amazing. And if anyone wants to send
(41:14):
One more thing. There is currently a
movie being written on my life. And it's
going to be due out probably in the next year
or two. I can't give away the title, but
Oh my gosh. Okay. As soon as it's out, you let me know and I'll update our audience
with that. And I'll put the updated link in the show notes and things like
(41:36):
that. That sounds amazing. Wow. Is it a
Wow. How exciting. Do you need any support for
(41:57):
OK, so just email you. Yes. Well, and we'll definitely help
spread the word and just let us know how we can help when that comes out. Your story
Yeah. Well, thank you, Ron. Thanks for coming on. I'm so glad I met you at
the Celia Center event. And we'll continue collaborating and
(42:17):
I am so excited about this, and I'm glad
that we could find each other at that event and share
some conversation. And I really appreciate you
giving me this opportunity to be on Unraveling Podcast.
Oh, you're very welcome, Ron. Thank you. Thank you very much. Make
(42:37):
sure and go check out all of Ron's resources. And while
you're on the internet, go look up unravelingadoption.com. We
have lots of events and lots of free resources on our website. So
check out all that we have there. I also wanted to remind you, we
really appreciate it whenever you can review our podcast.
on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And
(43:00):
also our book that we have out called Adoption and Suicidality. It
could use a little more love on Amazon and Goodreads if
you would like to either rate or rate and review it on
either of those platforms. We really appreciate all of your support. Those
reviews do go a long way to helping others be able to
find us. Thank you all for listening to this episode. Make
(43:21):
sure and share it with somebody that you know that would love to hear Ron's
story or who might need to be inspired by his story. Ron
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