September 22, 2025 • 50 mins
In this episode, Karlos Dillard and Tag discuss the often overlooked experiences of men in the foster care system. They explore the stigma surrounding men's mental health, the impact of trauma, and the importance of sharing stories. Tag shares his personal journey through neglect, abuse, and eventual adoption, highlighting the complexities of identity and relationships shaped by his experiences. The conversation emphasizes the need for open dialogue about men's experiences in child welfare and the healing power of therapy.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Content warning.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
The Wards of the State podcast may contain material that
may be harmful or traumatizing to some audiences.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Heyli Shiners, Welcome to another episode of Wards of the State.
I am so excited to discontinue to bring you guys
more and more and more lived experience from all diasporas
of the external.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Child worlfare system. There is one thing that I am
I do have a request.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
We don't have very many men coming on the show today.
We got, we got, we got a little a little
bit for y'all. I'm excited, but we have heard that
people say, like, what about the boys and Foster Care,
what about the men? Why don't men share their experience?
And I'll be honest, a lot of people, a lot
of men specifically, don't share their experiences because of society
and the way society looks at trauma and the way
society kind of shames men for speaking about things that
(01:14):
happen to them. I talk about it on my podcast
or on the live a lot. Specifically, essay. Men don't
really report essay because as soon as you do, it's
oh that you might be gay. Ain't nobody gay, okay,
And every single day off you guys watching me on
TikTok Live, they always say, oh, you're gay because you
were harmed. But it doesn't make sense because I know
(01:35):
straight men that were harmed and they're straight, right and
vice versa. I know women that are harmed by women
and they're straight or they're gay or it doesn't matter.
And this connection of trauma, I think it's also just trying.
It's a way to shame people. I don't know why
people think being gay is shameful, because it's fabulous as fuck,
but in society it is something that they try to
(01:58):
shame you for. So I do want to encourage more
men and people who identify as men to share their stories.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
It is important.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
And the more that we share our stories, the more
that we write books, the more that we have podcast episodes,
the more that we can say that, hey, you're not alone,
because right now, what I'm seeing is that a lot
of folks just think that this is a woman's problem.
In child welfare, whenever we speak of child welfare, we
talk about the moms and the babies and the adoptive mothers.
We rarely speak about the dads or what happens the
(02:25):
two men or boys in these systems. It's my personal
to belief is that it's because there's shame attached to
it by society, where men are supposed to just you know,
pick yourself up, you know, tough up, man up, just
keep yourself, pick yourself up out the bit of bootstraps
and like keep pushing. And I think this is so
fitting because June is Men's Mental Health Awareness Month.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
And you know, I do understand that a lot of
men are trash. Here'll Hio, women are.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
With you, but even the trash sometimes need to be
cared for, which is why we have recycling.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Okay. Let's recycle some of.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
These men's mental health okay and give them another chance
at a new form of live okay as a new
product up and out. On a serious note, men's mental
health is important and for all of our safety is important.
There are the people who are making decisions and trying
to control our bodies, and maybe if they felt like
they had control of their own bodies and their own decisions,
they would try to control less of other people. I
(03:21):
think it's all connected, but I think that it's important
for us to share, which is why I'm super excited
to introduce our next guest, but before I do that,
I want to make sure you guys are leaving a
one two, three, four five star rating review on Apple Podcasts.
I want to make sure you guys are subscribing to
us on Spotify and also making sure that you guys
are subscribing to us on YouTube. We do do the
live recordings of the youth of the podcast every episode
(03:43):
we make, so if you want to catch it live
before it goes or any podcast, and usually it's weak
in advance. Honestly, y'all should be subscribing to that YouTube
because you get to God, you get to see the
episodes as I record them, so that's really a benefit.
And there's also a chat section in the on the
YouTube that a lot of people like to just chitch
and talk about the stories that they're hearing. Sometimes I
was trying to jump in there as well, but yeah,
(04:04):
it's a really cool experience if you want to kind
of experience the podcast differently. And lastly, make sure you
guys are sharing with your family and friends, especially men
this month, specifically maybe this episode. So without further ado,
I want to introduce our next guest, tag how are
you doing.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Tag, I'm doing just dandy today.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Actually, fantastic, fantastic, you're over there laughing. We did I
but did I lie?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
But I definitely did not do not A lie was
not told. So Tyd, just tell us about your experience
in the external child warfare system. What what's your experience?
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Well, I mean I started pretty young in the system.
But before I begin, I do want to actually kind
of touch on what you just said there. I was
always told young because of what I'd been through, that
like you should not tell anybody, Oh, you'll be treated differently.
And then as I was, like I grew up and learned.
It's like I can't remember the exact number, but like
seventy five percent of men have gone through things and
(04:59):
they just don't they'd never talk about it. But in reality,
if more of us would, we would have a much
stronger community around just that specifically that would help us
get through that. Because I feel like a lot of
these things that Bere said today, like the toxic masculinity,
bases from that, like men just trying to keep that
in And for me, I mean, I've got like almost
(05:22):
every memory since two years old, because that's it's kind
of where it began.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
M h me too. People say, how can you remember?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Some early said trauma, trauma make your brain star member
and things real fast.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Mm hmm. And I mean, I guess that's kind of
how I can remember my story so clearly, just the
amount of trauma. And I mean I grew up like originally,
like my original home I was, I'm the middle child
of five, I'm the only boy, so I got two
older sisters and two youngers, and from the get go
though we were like all like split and separated. I
(05:57):
originally actually only remember growing up with my birth parents
and with my oldest sister, these two, and it was
rough the lordie where to begin properly with it? I mean,
my birth mother, for starters, was a single mother who
(06:17):
had all five of us from five different men. So
there's the implication with that. I never really knew my
birth father. I think my sisters did. But the story
gets to begin with one of my sisters accidentally wetting herself.
That's literally where my entire story, that's where I consider
(06:39):
like it broke from like it started right there. We
growing up, Me and my older sister would go to
pick up what I knew was my middle sister, the
three oldest. We would go pick her up for my
aunt and uncles where she would live. And one one
fateful day we went to pick her up, went to
my birth mother's for visitor, and she wet herself. Maybe
(07:02):
we were but I was I think four, she was
six years old. I was four years old. So she
wet herself on our way there, and we got there.
Of course, we didn't want to bring her back without
a change of clothes or anything, so my birth grandparents
left her there and on our way back we went
back to my aunt and uncles and they were like,
(07:22):
where is she, where's bridget Oh, we had to leave her.
She wet herself, YadA, YadA, YadA. They went ballistic shit
like I'm pretty sure my aunt came at my grandparents
with a shovel. Wow. Yeah. I remember sitting in the
car as being like, please, don't hurt Grandma, let's go,
let's go, let's leave, and my sister just sitting there
like holding me like oh no. And needless to say,
(07:44):
that night, dark night, the Child Protective Services showed up
in black car. Grandparents gave us big Teddy bears, two
big Teddy bears, and the longest car ride of my life.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
So it was just that one fight that caused the removal.
It was that bad of a fight.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
That was the that was the breaking point. My birth
mother was so she was on drugs, drug addict, and
she was so deep into that lifestyle that everyone kind
of knew that, like, she can't take care of any
of her kids, she shouldn't have any of her kids.
But she still wanted to see us. So my birth
grandparents were like, well, we'll bring them to you every
once in a while so you can see them. But
(08:25):
the rest of the family, because I believe that was
her sister, I want to say they did not like her,
did not want the kids around her, and I want
to say they might have had some kind of custody
over my sister, a Bridget, but I'm not entirely sure.
But as far as I can remember, I mean, there
was one I guess you'd call it an incident before then,
(08:46):
but it had nothing to do with Bridget. It was
with my oldest sister, her name is Whisper, and it
happened probably a year before that event actually happened. We
had like a little campfire out front and at there
was shaving cream bottle in the fire as like a
three year old and it, yeah, it exploded and the
(09:08):
bottom of the can came off like a ninja star
went between my sister's legs and sliced open the inside
of her thigh like a mass of gash, just completely
cut open her leg.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Yeah, huge scar still has it to this day, the
little growing up. As you know, you tend to grow
up a little fast when you're in the system going
through things. So I always held a lot of like
shame for that, just like, oh no, I scarred my sister.
I hurt my sister. But at the same time, I
was a kid. I mean I had no way of knowing.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yeah, you're three years old. Someone should have prevented you
from throwing a shaving cream can into a bombfire.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Yeah yeah, But I mean these are things that happened
in the trailer part apparently. But the part though that
brought all my memories to the surface. Though, other than
the CPS and that incident, the very first memory I
have is from when I was two years old. We
had my grandparents and my Bubbaly who lived with us
in the trailer home, and I would crawl around just
(10:09):
on the floor, into his bedroom, into his bathroom, and
a two years old was when I saw my first
Playboy magazine and can remember it.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Yep, So from a very young age, I kind of
already knew what sex was pretty much and that did
not help, but not help the situation.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
So it kind of explained your experience from two to five.
It's hearing like you were with your grandparents for a
little bit and then CPS got involved. What happened after
that long ride with CPS?
Speaker 3 (10:42):
So I went to my first home after that, which
I do not remember a single bit of my first home.
Apparently it was with a relative STD only like two months,
didn't work out for some reason and got removed from there.
It was my second home that I first remember. And
(11:03):
at this point it was kind of like you know,
the visitations where we'd see I'd see my sisters. That's
what it was more for than like my birth mother,
because I don't remember if she ever showed up for
a single visitation. Yeah, from the from the get go,
from the beginning, she was just very absent. I don't
think I ever saw my birth mother again since that
(11:25):
day to this day, never seen her.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Do you know where she is, Yes, I do, I do.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
She's she's actually in the south part of Georgia where
I stay. She's hours and hours away. I believe she
got arrested like three years ago for a big drug
bust that she was involved in. Okay, but uh yeah,
that first home was a different kind of trauma. Experienced
a lot of neglect, like the true, truest form of
(11:51):
what it means to truly be neglected. And I think
a lot of people will like not they put a
different meaning to that word. Oh you're giving me attention.
Oh you're not doing this for me. Oh you didn't
buy me the shoes I wanted. This was a neglect
that I've never experienced again in my life. Where it
was a single mother. She had two daughters and a
(12:11):
son already living there that were her biologicals, and she
always worked, so we'd either have a babysitter or the
other siblings. We would just take care of each other
and I would see her on occasion. But to be
like a five year old and to not see a
pre parent and you just have your siblings who were
all in the same age group. I was almost drowned
(12:32):
in that house. I almost bled out one time in
that house and I was assaulted and s actually assaulted
multiple times in that house, but there was no rental
guidance there. I would so like I remember Matt, he
was the oldest son, the older kind of I guess
call him foster brother, but he was the older son.
(12:54):
I would hide under cars trying to stay away from
him because he would He was just such a bitter
me guy, and you would bully me, pick on me,
push me. I remember one time, first time ever, getting
the wind knocked out of me. I was jumping on
the trampoline and he just at the mid height like
just pushed me while I was jumping and flew off,
hit the ground, just wind gone. Just hid from him
(13:16):
ever since that day. They had a pool and was
drowned and nothing once. But what really ended up getting
me in that home was the the sexual stuff, because
I knew what it was. I knew what sex was like.
It was a thing that you could do and that
adults enjoyed doing this activity. But I didn't know what
(13:38):
it was. I didn't know the morals and values behind
everything there, and it was very easy at that time
for my foster sister to take advantage of that and
because she was there were twins, the older and the younger,
like he had Matt and then you had the two twins,
but one of them was kind of like an older
(14:00):
than the other, and the older one would like bite
me and also pick on me like her brother, but
the younger one didn't. And always it just never, never
seemed like a bad thing at the time. And then
but needless to say, she started doing small things here
and there, getting in the bathtub with me, helping me clean,
(14:22):
taking me to the bathroom all the time, just normal
things until that day she was like, hey, let's go
under the bed. Plenty of room under the bed to
do things.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
And how was she and how it were you?
Speaker 3 (14:35):
I was five, looking back on it, she had to
have probably been seven to ten.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Wow, So that means that she was exposed to something.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
I had to that was my like, because I mean,
I can't contact these people again, I can't go back.
But just from what I can tell, like something had
to have happened. But needs to say, we ended up
under the bed with her pants now as kids shouldn't
and somehow I really don't I don't entirely know how,
(15:06):
but we got called like it just I mean, it's
a good thing. But I never understood how that happened.
Just got found out, I guess, and got dragged out
from under the bed one day. And of course the
daughter was, oh, YadA YadA, he told me this, told
me to do that. And I'm sitting here like I
am a little boy. I don't know what's going on.
(15:29):
And yeah, I was. That was my first time being moved,
but I was actually gonna. I was. I was thankful.
I was happy because at that time it was like,
I'm just pure neglect to me. No one's taking care
of me, no one's feeding me, no one's giving me time.
I'm just hiding, running, trying to survive. I'm pretty sure
I was living off of like candy at that point. Yeah.
(15:51):
And then to the next home, which is kind of
ironic in my mind that like, I went through only
three homes overall between the ages of I was very
lucky with that, between the ages of four and six, seven,
four and seven. I believe it was might have been six,
might have been eight. No, it was four and six, Yeah,
(16:13):
four and six, four and six. The second home, though,
is the one where it all all went out the window.
Everything just am I allowed to cuss you?
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Sure are? This is an explicit podcast.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Okay, good, because that's when everything went to shit. I uh,
this is the home where I remember the most and
the most happened to me. I grew up. I moved
from that home at missing at Tates too or no,
from Miss Patsy to a net tape.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
I had a Miss Patsy too, you did.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Oh yeah, I remember actually in your book you did
mention that. I heard that, and I was like, oh
my lord.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
He said, oh, Mad was the same as Patsy.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
No, and then I was like, oh wait, no, no, no,
it's different side of the country.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Maybe moving just to abuse my children.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
I tell you sometimes. But the yeah, at that point
is when I got moved to my what I remember
as my second home, but what I'm told was my
third home. And this is where kind of, like I
like to say, to understand, this is where my conscience
kicked in, Like this is where I went from a
kid to an adult, Like my brain switched and I
(17:21):
could finally understand things, finally understood now like what actual
like what sex was and how you can get in
trouble for stuff like that, and understood what it meant
to be neglected and to try to have a family.
I was excited, I was hopeful, and I was moved
in with a single black mother out in the hood,
(17:41):
the projects and stuff and heavily medicated. And that is
when I forgot my name, which was rough. The system
forgot my name, and Miss Annatt Tate she gave me
a new name. And for the longest time I was gused,
just gu Gus, yes, just Gus, nothing else. But I
(18:04):
grew up as Augustine being called Augie. Somewhere between those
two homes, some one just dropped the ball and I
lost my name, and for the longest time I was
just going by Gus. But I was such a timid
little kid, because this home was a little house like
two bedrooms, a bathroom. In my room was very small, concrete,
(18:30):
one little window with bars on its way up there
and old, an old like space, not even a space here.
It was like those radiators, the one like the slits
runs the water through it at bunk bed and that
was it. Yeah, that was pretty much a prison cell,
small backyard, huge field beside her house. And then all
the projects. And because I'm adhd and was a hyper
(18:54):
little boy, they put me on everything and I was
like a zombie, just going through the motions and missing
at Tate was Pentecostal Christian, which I mean, nothing wrong
with it, but there are extremists in every group. Just
like there are wonderful people in every group, there are
some people that just take it a little too far.
And she was one of those people to the point
(19:15):
where I was I was beat three times a day, religiously,
got to beat the evil out of you. I wasn't
allowed to celebrate Halloween because it was the Devil's Day.
And I remember actually being pulled out of school because
our pastor lived across the school, across the way, and
she would come pull me out of school, take me
to his house, and whoop me and send me back
(19:38):
to school three times a day like clockwork, for a
year straight. With everything, belts, spoons, rags, studded belts, you
name it. I've been beat with it. No kids, no,
not that level of beating. And I had one birthday
there when I turned sick, and that was the first
(20:01):
birthday where I watched someone else celebrate my birthday. Had Yeah,
we had like four little she got me, just like
four little cupcakes. And those cupcakes were given to her
two little nephews while I watched through a crack in
the closet because it was I either I can't remember
if I was about to get beat or if I
had just been beaten, but it was time for me
(20:24):
to go away while the kids celebrated and ATE never
saw the like I never ate those cupcakes, saw them,
didn't need them, didn't like turning sick.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
So how you were there for a year, a little
over a year, slightly over a year, and then you
went to your your third and last foster home.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
I actually was, that is my That was my third home,
was the second one that I could remember, but the
third one overall, so like the first home, I just don't.
I don't remember it at all. Yeah, it was. I
was apparently there for like two months.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
So and then clearly TP had happened because at this time,
you're visiting your siblings.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Did you visit your siblings during the time that you
were in these homes?
Speaker 3 (21:05):
I did during the first home, I did see them,
but during the second home, they one of my sisters
like got sent really far away, and then I just
never I don't. I don't think I was either I
wasn't taken or I just never saw them, because I
remember I remember seeing one of my sisters a couple
(21:26):
times while it missing at dates, but it was also
kind of one of those situations to where it's like
she was extremely controlling and didn't let me do anything,
go anywhere, see anybody. So from that point, I just
I don't remember having much contact until my adopted parents
started doing visitation with us.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
So how did you? How did you get introduced to
your adoptive parents?
Speaker 3 (21:50):
So they were they went through a third party agency.
They didn't go through this, No, they actually went through
the state, not a third party agency. And it was
a really funny story for them because my mother my
adopted mom. I consider her my mother, my dad my dad.
But she wanted to adopt three kids, siblings, and for
like two years, every like every so often, she would
(22:12):
go to my dad, what about these three? What about
these three? What about these three? And he was like, nope, nope, nope,
not doing three, not doing three. And then one day
he was out working on the car, she comes out like,
what about these three? Yep, And just like that they
decided to start coming down and spectating. I guess you'd
call it. They were looking at us like through mirrors,
you know, like the one way mirrors, and they fell
(22:37):
in love immediately, they said. And then they took us
on two or three little like visitations, and it was
really sweet because like they brought us scrap books with
like the family and everything and all the puppies because
they owned a farm. And then they had embroidered bags
and book bags for all of us and mindset gusts
on it. And my two sisters when they got in
(22:59):
the car because I was picked up first. When they
got in the car, they lost their minds. His name's
not Gus, and he's like yelling at or to be
it up to parents and they were like what And
they looked at me and like what's your name? And
I literally just went like looking at my sisters. I
didn't know my name and I didn't know who I was.
(23:21):
And then my sister like was like, his name's Augie,
and I was like I'll take that name, and they
were like yeah, they were like what do you want
to be called? And I looked at her again because
I mean at that point, my oldest sister whispered was
my mother like that's that's how you know, like siblings
latch on like that, especially when we've been yeah, and
(23:42):
so like being separated like that. She we had a
really bad habit when we were like first adopted, like
where I would I would save my food and not
eat and just keep bringing it to her, and it
was like we have to take care of her so
that she can take care of us. That was a
hard habit to break. But that's when I learned my
name again and and the the turning point. So you know,
(24:07):
the process. It takes a while, but if you're persistent
in push and force things, you can speed it up.
It's just a really hard fight. Well, they they found
out that missing at Tate was trying to adopt me,
and they left me one day with her, and I
was sitting on the front steps and she was smiling
and waving as they left, and I was sitting there
just crying my eyes out, and she literally was like,
(24:28):
stop crying right now, or I'm going to be jos
And I was like, yes, ma'am, like I had like
I couldn't even I couldn't even cry. I literally could
not be a kid. And uh. And that was when
the first like a few times of actual like abuse,
like sexual abuse actually happened. I mean, you're in the projects.
(24:49):
You got a lot of a lot of kids running
around and unsupervised in one of them. Uh, he was
good at a scaring and me, and I was able
to put it in a interesting way. I guess he
was able to talk his way into my pants or
me into.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
His really at Missus Tates or.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
With you Yeah, no, at Missus Tates.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
So I explained that I hot, what do you mean
by that?
Speaker 3 (25:19):
There was another little black boy. He was probably fourteen
or fifteen, looking back on it, and by this point,
because of my previous home, I knew what sex was
and that we don't do that as kids, like, oh,
this is against the rules, this is I get in
trouble for this. Well, this boy would come over to
(25:41):
our house all the time and we would go play
in the backyard where there were like three trees that
grew perfectly with like a little erie in between you
could stand in. So it was like a little privacy
right there. Almost. Well, needless to say, it was a
you're going to do this or I'm going to tell
miss n f TA and she is going to kill you.
So you have to do what I say. And that
(26:05):
went on for the majority of the time that I
was at that house and until the end until I
was about to literally be adopted and he found out,
and that was when I got the worst beating in
my life, because he decided to go into the house
crying and telling her everything that I had done to him.
(26:25):
And I got one hell of a beating that day. When,
of course, I.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Bet you resonated with my first book a lot at
the Miller's house, because that sounds just like the Miller's sons,
like they're just the manipulative And then and then the whole.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Time, they just knew the power that they held and
all they had.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
To do was like tell or make up a live
and the when the meat, Yeah, when it's like I'm
six years old, what could what would I know about this?
What would I know about engaging in the startingness or
continuing these types of behaviors? I mean I was six
years old, seven years old, So it's like, yes, kids
(27:02):
can learn and do not smart things at a young age,
but at the same time, like some adults, it's like
they don't read, they don't look into the situation. It's
like you're gonna have like a fourteen fifteen year old
boy come to you and be like he touched me,
And then you've got a little seven year old here like, Hi.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
That's not how that works, dude, that's that's not that's
like that video, I said, Dick on accident, No, you didn't, right,
like you've I had a client and it's a similar situation.
He was ten and he was abusing his six year
old brother because he was a victim of abuse. And
I was talking to him one day and he was like, oh, well,
my six year old cousin forced himself upon me.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
And I said, you're ten, he's six. He doesn't even
know what this is.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
He did not, And then I said, so you're saying
a six year old who's half your size, I may
pull down your pants. That's not how that works. No, No,
that's not how that works.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Right. I told him.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
I was like, you're just gonna have to be honest,
because you know, we got to get you help, but like,
we need you to be honest, and where did this start?
Where did you learned this? And then that's when we
you know, opened up and being like, Okay, there's been
a lot of past trauma there with him with other adults, right,
and unfortunately some children will revictimize other children, and we
really have to be hypervileged, hypervision about that, right, so
(28:16):
to protect to protect the kids. So your parents, so
after that last meeting what like what like initiated your
adoption to be like kind of rushed.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
So my adopted parents pretty much it came back for
a visitation and found the bruising, like pretty much, there
were signs and then I was of course like like
I don't don't leave me here, don't don't leave me,
don't leave me, don't leave me, don't leave me. And
they that was the day they left and I was
(28:46):
crying my eyes out and I told them like, please
don't leave me, and they they saw me like course
if they were leaving, losing losing my shit, and they
they they decided then in they're like there is we're
not waiting. I'm not staying in that environment. And that
they had to. They had to get me and my
sisters out of the environments that we were in because
(29:07):
I mean my sisters of course had their own their
own traumatic events to happen in their foster care systems.
And yeah, it was shortly after that we actually did,
I believe it was like in I can't remember the exact.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Okay, then, so then how is your new life with
your adoptive family.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
It was a change, I guess. Like I was saying earlier,
the first few the first few months, maybe even years,
were very different from me because firstly, I went from
not having any kind of stability whatsoever to having stability.
But then I also had to kind of relearn how
to be a kid. I was already older, had seen
(29:44):
and done things that most kids shouldn't, and I couldn't relate.
I couldn't fit in, I couldn't I couldn't really connect
with anybody in the because also one of the first
things my adopted family did was pull me off of
every medication, like immediately, just because I mean, I grew
up on a farm out there here in Georgia, and
(30:05):
their thing was, I mean, you don't have ADHD or
just a hyper kid, go run play in the plane
of the woods climatory. So that's what I did, and
most of my life was spent outdoors. I didn't have technology,
I didn't do TV, video games. I was very much
an outdoor kid. Grew up on a farm, running around
and supporting my sisters because for the first first year
(30:26):
or so, they had to feed us separately because we
would feed each other and sneak food around and hide food.
For some reason, food was a big deal of our childhood.
I don't think I was fed right as a kid. Yeah,
food and security, yeah, but things were rough. Things were rough,
and my sisters had to learn how to have a brother.
(30:49):
I had to learn how to have sisters. I was
adopted with my two older sisters. I had two younger
sisters though, who actually I reconnected with when I was seventeen.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Okay, and did your adopted with parentoni? Just move three?
Did they adopt any other children while you guys were
growing up?
Speaker 3 (31:03):
Just us three? Birth mother or no adopted mother couldn't
have kids, So it was their way of being able
to have a family, although they did definitely take a
little bit of a risk. They did do a six
eight and six eight nine year old with me being
the youngest. So actually I grew up as the youngest
(31:23):
not really knowing that I had two younger sisters and
the Yeah, no, that was it just us three, but
adopting three older kids, so that was impressive on their part. Yeah,
and the came with this benefits though definitely definitely worth it.
On that part, like medical and all that stuff was
completely taken care of, so like I was definitely able
(31:45):
to get the the help I needed. I entered therapy
immediately spent awesome. I spent ten years give or take
in therapy.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
So it's not likely like your parents were really prepared
themselves before they brought me, because they kind of waited
and they knew that they wanted a sibling group of three,
so they probably.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Did a lot of work, you know, the mare and themselves.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
Yeah. Now, as being like an adult, I've gone through
cynical stages and optimistic stages and for a while though,
there was a little bit of animosity I guess, even
between my adopted family because my parents apparently, like the
last part of my growing up years, like I didn't know,
(32:26):
they wanted to get divorced. They faked their marriage for
like five or six years just so that we could
have intact parents. But when I turned seventeen, not right
when I turned seventeen, but I was in boarding school
at seventeen because I was losing my mind, and they
just got divorced while I was in boarding school. Then
(32:48):
when I came out, I was eighteen and parents were divorced.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
So what did you do after eighteen? Did you go
on to go to college?
Speaker 3 (32:54):
Like?
Speaker 1 (32:54):
How did that separation affect you? Did it affect you
at all?
Speaker 3 (32:57):
It? Did it? Did? I actually didn't. I didn't graduate
high school or go to college.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Yeah, Both my sisters graduated and ended up going to college.
But I actually I went through some really rough stages
there because for a while I had everything straight and narrow.
I was doing good, but I had major trust and
attachment issues. So it's like I wasn't really able to
trust anybody or connect with anybody, because firstly, I'd been
(33:27):
through so many different things and I couldn't understand emotion
the same way as everybody else. But finally I ended
up learning to trust, and I fell in love as
a young buck, as people do, and I got scared
and cheated, lost her, and then lost my mind, started
(33:49):
doing drugs, dropped out of high school, stole my car
from my parents, stole the piggy bank, and drove from
here to California, and then turned around and my engine
blew up in Reno, Nevada, and I spent three or
four months there trying to kill myself did not go
(34:10):
well because I didn't I didn't have the support from
my parents that had just broken. I just lost the
girl that I loved, and it all just kind of
came back and all just slammed into me at once
because at the same time, I was putting my children's
pastor from the church that I had grown up in jail.
The court case ended the day that I ran away.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
That was from your adoption, the pastor from your adoption.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
So like I was adopted and raised in a local
church and then at the age of fifteen ish or fourteen,
No wait, no, was I was fifteen? Yeah, I was fifteen.
At the age of fifteen, my parents wanted to find
me a mentor, so they went to Bill George of
the church the Orchard and Logan Bille, Georgia, and he
decided to be. He agreed to be my mentor, picked
(34:56):
me up, spend time with me, take me out to
teach me more and values, helped me with a weight
training exercises, working out, lifting, stretching, and would helped me
take my measurements for like my body mass index around
the neck, biceps, legs, chest. Well, never thought anything of it,
never said anything of it. Then those stretches and chests
(35:19):
turned it like stretches and measurements turned into a little like, oh,
let me lift up your pants here to measure here,
and it just kept progressing. But I never thought anything
of it, because kind of like how things were in
the in your book, like you went to that temporary
foster home. I think it was. I think this is
the one. But yeah, yeah, he never did anything like
crazy or inappropriate like, so I didn't think anything of it,
(35:42):
and he never really touched me until one day I
was over at his place and I was I've always
been a very tense type person because of all the
trust issues and everything that happened. And he was like,
let me give you a massage to help loosen up
your muscles. I even let me help you relax. And
that massage went way too far. But still nothing in
(36:03):
my mind that registered as inappropriate or that I wanted
to tell someone. So I was like, I'll just let
it be what it is. I guess this is what
it means when you trust somebody and you're supposed to
like engage with them, I needs to say. I went
home that day and I was just walking around my house.
My mom comes home, Hey, Mom, how's your day. It
was good. I got a full body massage today. Oh
(36:23):
that's wonderful me too, huh, because I mean I was
a fifteen year old and she was like, what do
you mean you get a full buddy massage today? I'm like, oh, yeah,
well I was that like with Bill George. She's like,
come here. I sat me down and like had me
tell her everything, and I was like, there's nothing, Like,
what's the big deal. He didn't do anything. He didn't
touch me anywhere or anything. And my mom was sitting
(36:45):
there like, Okay, yeah, no, you're defending this man. You
don't understand. You were completely butt ass naked on his
bed in his room, unsupervised by anybody. And I was like, yeah,
you gotta point now that I'm thinking about it. And
before calling the cops or doing anything, we set up
in like a go pro camera an audio recorder under
(37:08):
a seat called him and it was like, Hey, his
dad's going to be gone. Can you just come over
talk with me and my son and then we can
figure out what's going on here, Like my dad doesn't
have to be involved, Like, let's just talk this out
and he came over. We had those recording devices set up,
spilled the beans on everything, told every detail and news say,
(37:28):
since we did this before contact any authority or anything,
we were considered working independently and not as like an
assistant to the state, so it was all admissible. It
could all be put into court. And this the man
got hit with the hammer perfect like community member needs
to say, like thirty other victims came forward.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Wow, he was a.
Speaker 3 (37:50):
High school football coach, so I guess that's where he
learned the tactic that he used on me, because he
used that tactic of a lot of other boys.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
It's always a pillar of the community can rely on that.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
You can always rely on that.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
And I remember having to like close all my social media's.
We weren't allowed to, like we stopped getting the newspaper
because the amount of backlash that I got for being
a minor that couldn't have a voice and the name
couldn't be posted. No one knew who came forward with
these allegations. They just knew that the name couldn't be public.
And I sitting in church between two people that I
(38:25):
cared about and had known most of my life and
hearing them talk about how terrible this person must be
that is accusing him of these things, and how it
is just such a terrible thing, and how they're such
a terrible person, and how they would try to do
this to someone so respectable. I had to stop going
to church, had to cut off my social life, had
to completely take a step back until the day where
(38:46):
a court came and I was like I was called
to the stand and it was like everyone just kind
of you could see it in their eyes, like and
did a Yeah it didn't go well, but he was charged, convicted,
just came up for parole and actually just got denied.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Good good, So tag after you know that experience in Nevada,
What what did you do after that?
Speaker 3 (39:09):
After Nevada? So I got I oeded in Nevada and died,
And yeah, it was rough. I was I think I
was dead for like seven minutes or something. Came back
in after everything had cleared my system and everything, because
I took off running like a bullet and I woke
up the next day like under a bridge, of course,
and that was a church group feed giving out breakfast,
(39:32):
feeding people and I was just kind of like on
the opposite side of the bridge. They found me. I
was like, hey, what's up? And I explained who I
was and what was going on. They contacted my family
back in Georgia and uh that church actually came together.
Kept denying on me, constantly fed me, clothed me, bathed me,
put me on a bus and sent me all the
way back and I was I was recovered by my
(39:54):
parents from the bus stop, taken immediately to a hospital
that was skinning bones. I actually have one picture from there,
like when they were holding me up on either side
of them and I'm in between them, and I'd lost
so much weight I was pretty much a skeleton and
spent I spent some time there. Took me two years,
(40:16):
give or take, getting sober. It was a rough fight.
Plenty of relapses is part of the process. Got sober
over the span of two or three years. Being that
I grew up in construction, I started to work on cars.
I was like, I kind of already know how to
do hands stuff. Started working on cars, stayed clean, started
(40:37):
jumping around a lot, and now I am a fully
blown mechanic.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
That's awesome. Congtulations.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
I was able to thank you. I do appreciate that,
so I was able to definitely bring it back and
figured out who I was. I'm grateful for the therapy
more than anything out there. I definitely am a huge
advocate for therapy for anyone who's been through anything. Even
if you haven't been through traumatic things, therapy can still
be a wonderful tool for anybody who wants to take
(41:06):
advantage of it. Because I definitely learned how to manage,
how to cope, and just how to overcome things and
have strengthen myself to get through all these things. But
it also helped me understand that I'm I'm not normal.
I'll never be normal. I'm not I'm not your average Joe,
but I am.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
And you know, and that's okay too.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
To realize that's something that I think in my older age,
I'm starting to be more okay with. Ever since I
was a kid six seven years old, I've always tried.
I've had I've had to be excellent, even through all
the trauma I had to, you know, persevere, and I
think sometimes perseverance is definitely a trauma response. But that
(41:51):
idea of I'm never going to be normal, like I'm
always going to have different emotional responses. I'm always going
to have different emotional expectations, and that can be just
like daunting, especially in relationships or friendships, where like I
have a different expectations for my friends and most people
be like, that's really just crazy for you to expect
that of friends, But then they don't understand. You know
(42:13):
where I come from and how I am guarded, and
it does take a lot ticket to know me, and
when you do, I do have kind of like attachment issues,
like I'm very attached to my friends with family and
then also like my spouse and now as of the
thirty three year old a man, I'm just like, it's
okay to be not normal, But also what does that
(42:34):
now look like? Because I've gotten to a point in
my life where the success no longer it no longer
hides the pain and trauma anymore.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
It's like you can't run away anymore.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
I can't, and I keep doing I'm going to do
this project, and I'm want to do this, and I'm
going to run for senate. And it's just like, do
you want to do those things because they're put your
passionate about it? Or do you want to just keep
making bigger and bigger and bigger projects that you have
to do and you know you'll accomplish it and you
know you'll do great.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
At it because that's just who you are.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
But that's also a way for you to just be
like I'm just I'm I'm biding my time right from
real happiness and real growth.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
And I honestly I don't know.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
What that looks like because I always thought real happiness
and growth would be, you know, having a home and
being successful and being quote normal.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
But that's not not normal.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
It is not normal setting on the washing machine.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Right, So like I'm just like, so, what where where
does your heart belong?
Speaker 1 (43:30):
And where does your heart want to be?
Speaker 2 (43:31):
And that's just like a journey that I think I'm
going to start next year or maybe after my birthday
next month, and just start that next journey of my
new normal, right, And I don't know what that might
look like, but I do know that it's okay not
to be what society deems as normal. Yeah, and that
and that might even be with Like I was just
talking to a friend about how a lot of there's
(43:54):
couples who because I was like, I want to take
a year or two years to just travel the world
by myself, and the like, well what about your I
was like, what about them? Like why do I like,
I'll give them a phone call? Like we're still married.
But like that's another thing. Why do I have to
change my entire life because I fell in love with someone?
Speaker 1 (44:14):
Right?
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Why does that have to be the norm? That doesn't happen?
Why do we got to live in the same house?
That doesn't got to be None of this has to
be normal, right.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
And that's and that's what like this is one big
thing for me, Like it irritates me. Is like I
don't like being told how I should live or that
you should be this way or that way when I'm
sitting here, like there's no two lives are the same.
No two people ever go through the exact same situation
and live the exact same life. No one is normal.
Everyone is unique, Everyone is different, and that's nothing wrong
(44:45):
with that. If I want to live one way and
you want to live a different way, we can both live.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Absolutely, And it's a Absolutely it's.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
Been rough because it's like my older sister, my oldest
sister actually turned out to be into females and has
been dating this one girl for like six years now
and it's been wonderful. But she is a little on
the extremist side and has come to me several times
and been like, you should be gay. Well, you're definitely gay.
It's just because of what you went through and the
(45:16):
gay Yeah, it's like, oh you, it's just because of
the things you went through in foster care that you
don't like guys. And I'm sitting here like, excuse.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
Me, that's crazy.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
Yeah. When I love everybody, I don't care who you are,
what you are, where you are. I love everybody. And
I feel like I probably would have turned out like
polyamorous or bisexual if certain things hadn't happened to me.
But because of these things that have happened to me,
it's kind of like the opposite. I can still love
everyone equally and treat them equally, but I'm just not
(45:46):
intrigued by the male form. It's just not my preference.
And then I've had I've had other friends who I've
told my story to be like, I'm surprised you're not racist,
and I'm like, I can't blame you. That comes from
it because of miss inn at Tate there she was black. Yeah,
and then the first dude who's sexually moist. Tom Me
(46:06):
was black that home where I was beat constantly, and
I'm like, nah, I can't judge her. That's one person.
She was not right up here. That was one dude
who knows what happened to that poor kid that made
him want to do that to me.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
People try to do that same thing with me.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
My adoptive parents like, oh, you can't blame all white people,
and I'm like, I don't blame all white people. I
don't think all white people are bad or evil, but
I do know that a lot of them are racist,
and most of them have internalized racism so that it
doesn't work with the flipway.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
Yeah, And I'm sitting there.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Because I under saying your POV is like, yeah, not
all black people are like that, and there are a
lot that will be. But there's that's not systemic, right, missus.
Tate is not sustemic. Not child abuses systemics. So that's
that's the norm, no matter what, Black, White, Latino, Asian,
they abuse children. They they abuse some children, right. But
(46:59):
I people all often ask me that's why that's why
you go so hard against white people, And I was like, well, no,
I go so hard against white people because they are
colonizing minds, like they have a colonized mindset. They think
they own everything, and then they weaponize tears in their stories.
But I said, but I definitely don't think it's all.
But we shouldn't be talking about all or not. It
should be if there's enough, there's enough, right, it's all,
(47:22):
and it's all into there's none. Just like that's my
idea when it comes to men. I don't think that
every man is a violent predator, but I do know
that most are.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
So I'm just gonna.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
Saying there's a good number of them out there. You
know this this, Oh sorry, they'll go ahead. The third
biggest change in my life that this has all had
that every time I say this, people raise their eyebrows
or have a comment because I had to grow up
so fast from so young. I am twenty six years old,
(47:54):
my girl is forty two years old. I have a
twenty one year old stepson and a sixteen year old
step daughter, and I handle everything wonderfully. But people are
always like, you date a forty two year old woman
with two kids, and I'm like, well, no one else
has that same maturity level that understanding, and it took
a long time for me to learn that I can't
(48:17):
really get along with my age group. They're also young,
and I'm sitting here like to meet someone who's twenty
three younger than me but clearly has that same level
of just intellect and maturity and understanding of the world
and the bad side of it.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
Absolutely, absolutely well, Tag, thank you so much for coming
on the show and being vulnerable and sharing your lived experience.
I ask every guest, what's one piece of advice that
you would give to and adopted your former foster youth?
So what's one thing you would say to a little
boy that has gone through something similar that or is
going through something similar that you experienced?
Speaker 1 (48:52):
One people advice to give.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
The keep going, Just keep going, one day at a time.
It gets better. At some point everything will just be
a memory. Then you'll be able to sit back and
dis handled it. If you're in that situation currently, it
will pass, and as time goes on, it's all wins,
(49:14):
it will it will pass.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
I love that well.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Tag, thank you so much for coming on the Wards
of This Day podcast. I'm so excited to share your
story and thank you again for sharing it and I
hope that the listeners, especially I'll share this with men,
share this with young boys in the foster carerent adoption systems,
even if you don't know if they've been through anything.
Because like we said, text has seventy five percent of men,
that's one out of that's three out of four, right,
three out of four men have been abused in some
(49:41):
way or for shape, it's sexually in their lives.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
And I don't think we talk about that enough.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
And that also, like like Taz was saying, that has
you know, long term effects, rather the addiction, rather be suicide,
rather it be you know, attachment issues.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
Rather it be progressed maturity, because you know, even.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
Though it's great that you are more of Atrey, shouldn't
have had to be a twenty six year old feeling
like you can't get in with other twenty six year olds, right,
because I have a fact that that also, I can
see why people raise their eyes like, well you you
were more closer to her her child age to their
her age, right. But then when people don't understand your promise,
so you know, that could also be something that could
be hard to navigate.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
But that's not that's not something.
Speaker 2 (50:19):
That that you chose. It's more so, like you said,
it's your maturity level because you know that's forced the church.
Speaker 1 (50:24):
So by China, I want to thank you guys again
for being here.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
And like I say every week, you always shine your
life because you never know you might be guiding in
a dark place. So the next time you guys, always
shine your life
Content warning.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
The Wards of the State podcast may contain material that
may be harmful or traumatizing to some audiences.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Heyli Shiners, Welcome to another episode of Wards of the State.
I am so excited to discontinue to bring you guys
more and more and more lived experience from all diasporas
of the external.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Child worlfare system. There is one thing that I am
I do have a request.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
We don't have very many men coming on the show today.
We got, we got, we got a little a little
bit for y'all. I'm excited, but we have heard that
people say, like, what about the boys and Foster Care,
what about the men? Why don't men share their experience?
And I'll be honest, a lot of people, a lot
of men specifically, don't share their experiences because of society
and the way society looks at trauma and the way
society kind of shames men for speaking about things that
(01:14):
happen to them. I talk about it on my podcast
or on the live a lot. Specifically, essay. Men don't
really report essay because as soon as you do, it's
oh that you might be gay. Ain't nobody gay, okay,
And every single day off you guys watching me on
TikTok Live, they always say, oh, you're gay because you
were harmed. But it doesn't make sense because I know
(01:35):
straight men that were harmed and they're straight, right and
vice versa. I know women that are harmed by women
and they're straight or they're gay or it doesn't matter.
And this connection of trauma, I think it's also just trying.
It's a way to shame people. I don't know why
people think being gay is shameful, because it's fabulous as fuck,
but in society it is something that they try to
(01:58):
shame you for. So I do want to encourage more
men and people who identify as men to share their stories.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
It is important.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
And the more that we share our stories, the more
that we write books, the more that we have podcast episodes,
the more that we can say that, hey, you're not alone,
because right now, what I'm seeing is that a lot
of folks just think that this is a woman's problem.
In child welfare, whenever we speak of child welfare, we
talk about the moms and the babies and the adoptive mothers.
We rarely speak about the dads or what happens the
(02:25):
two men or boys in these systems. It's my personal
to belief is that it's because there's shame attached to
it by society, where men are supposed to just you know,
pick yourself up, you know, tough up, man up, just
keep yourself, pick yourself up out the bit of bootstraps
and like keep pushing. And I think this is so
fitting because June is Men's Mental Health Awareness Month.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
And you know, I do understand that a lot of
men are trash. Here'll Hio, women are.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
With you, but even the trash sometimes need to be
cared for, which is why we have recycling.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Okay. Let's recycle some of.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
These men's mental health okay and give them another chance
at a new form of live okay as a new
product up and out. On a serious note, men's mental
health is important and for all of our safety is important.
There are the people who are making decisions and trying
to control our bodies, and maybe if they felt like
they had control of their own bodies and their own decisions,
they would try to control less of other people. I
(03:21):
think it's all connected, but I think that it's important
for us to share, which is why I'm super excited
to introduce our next guest, but before I do that,
I want to make sure you guys are leaving a
one two, three, four five star rating review on Apple Podcasts.
I want to make sure you guys are subscribing to
us on Spotify and also making sure that you guys
are subscribing to us on YouTube. We do do the
live recordings of the youth of the podcast every episode
(03:43):
we make, so if you want to catch it live
before it goes or any podcast, and usually it's weak
in advance. Honestly, y'all should be subscribing to that YouTube
because you get to God, you get to see the
episodes as I record them, so that's really a benefit.
And there's also a chat section in the on the
YouTube that a lot of people like to just chitch
and talk about the stories that they're hearing. Sometimes I
was trying to jump in there as well, but yeah,
(04:04):
it's a really cool experience if you want to kind
of experience the podcast differently. And lastly, make sure you
guys are sharing with your family and friends, especially men
this month, specifically maybe this episode. So without further ado,
I want to introduce our next guest, tag how are
you doing.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Tag, I'm doing just dandy today.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Actually, fantastic, fantastic, you're over there laughing. We did I
but did I lie?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
But I definitely did not do not A lie was
not told. So Tyd, just tell us about your experience
in the external child warfare system. What what's your experience?
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Well, I mean I started pretty young in the system.
But before I begin, I do want to actually kind
of touch on what you just said there. I was
always told young because of what I'd been through, that
like you should not tell anybody, Oh, you'll be treated differently.
And then as I was, like I grew up and learned.
It's like I can't remember the exact number, but like
seventy five percent of men have gone through things and
(04:59):
they just don't they'd never talk about it. But in reality,
if more of us would, we would have a much
stronger community around just that specifically that would help us
get through that. Because I feel like a lot of
these things that Bere said today, like the toxic masculinity,
bases from that, like men just trying to keep that
in And for me, I mean, I've got like almost
(05:22):
every memory since two years old, because that's it's kind
of where it began.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
M h me too. People say, how can you remember?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Some early said trauma, trauma make your brain star member
and things real fast.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Mm hmm. And I mean, I guess that's kind of
how I can remember my story so clearly, just the
amount of trauma. And I mean I grew up like originally,
like my original home I was, I'm the middle child
of five, I'm the only boy, so I got two
older sisters and two youngers, and from the get go
though we were like all like split and separated. I
(05:57):
originally actually only remember growing up with my birth parents
and with my oldest sister, these two, and it was
rough the lordie where to begin properly with it? I mean,
my birth mother, for starters, was a single mother who
(06:17):
had all five of us from five different men. So
there's the implication with that. I never really knew my
birth father. I think my sisters did. But the story
gets to begin with one of my sisters accidentally wetting herself.
That's literally where my entire story, that's where I consider
(06:39):
like it broke from like it started right there. We
growing up, Me and my older sister would go to
pick up what I knew was my middle sister, the
three oldest. We would go pick her up for my
aunt and uncles where she would live. And one one
fateful day we went to pick her up, went to
my birth mother's for visitor, and she wet herself. Maybe
(07:02):
we were but I was I think four, she was
six years old. I was four years old. So she
wet herself on our way there, and we got there.
Of course, we didn't want to bring her back without
a change of clothes or anything, so my birth grandparents
left her there and on our way back we went
back to my aunt and uncles and they were like,
(07:22):
where is she, where's bridget Oh, we had to leave her.
She wet herself, YadA, YadA, YadA. They went ballistic shit
like I'm pretty sure my aunt came at my grandparents
with a shovel. Wow. Yeah. I remember sitting in the
car as being like, please, don't hurt Grandma, let's go,
let's go, let's leave, and my sister just sitting there
like holding me like oh no. And needless to say,
(07:44):
that night, dark night, the Child Protective Services showed up
in black car. Grandparents gave us big Teddy bears, two
big Teddy bears, and the longest car ride of my life.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
So it was just that one fight that caused the removal.
It was that bad of a fight.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
That was the that was the breaking point. My birth
mother was so she was on drugs, drug addict, and
she was so deep into that lifestyle that everyone kind
of knew that, like, she can't take care of any
of her kids, she shouldn't have any of her kids.
But she still wanted to see us. So my birth
grandparents were like, well, we'll bring them to you every
once in a while so you can see them. But
(08:25):
the rest of the family, because I believe that was
her sister, I want to say they did not like her,
did not want the kids around her, and I want
to say they might have had some kind of custody
over my sister, a Bridget, but I'm not entirely sure.
But as far as I can remember, I mean, there
was one I guess you'd call it an incident before then,
(08:46):
but it had nothing to do with Bridget. It was
with my oldest sister, her name is Whisper, and it
happened probably a year before that event actually happened. We
had like a little campfire out front and at there
was shaving cream bottle in the fire as like a
three year old and it, yeah, it exploded and the
(09:08):
bottom of the can came off like a ninja star
went between my sister's legs and sliced open the inside
of her thigh like a mass of gash, just completely
cut open her leg.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Yeah, huge scar still has it to this day, the
little growing up. As you know, you tend to grow
up a little fast when you're in the system going
through things. So I always held a lot of like
shame for that, just like, oh no, I scarred my sister.
I hurt my sister. But at the same time, I
was a kid. I mean I had no way of knowing.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yeah, you're three years old. Someone should have prevented you
from throwing a shaving cream can into a bombfire.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Yeah yeah, But I mean these are things that happened
in the trailer part apparently. But the part though that
brought all my memories to the surface. Though, other than
the CPS and that incident, the very first memory I
have is from when I was two years old. We
had my grandparents and my Bubbaly who lived with us
in the trailer home, and I would crawl around just
(10:09):
on the floor, into his bedroom, into his bathroom, and
a two years old was when I saw my first
Playboy magazine and can remember it.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Yep, So from a very young age, I kind of
already knew what sex was pretty much and that did
not help, but not help the situation.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
So it kind of explained your experience from two to five.
It's hearing like you were with your grandparents for a
little bit and then CPS got involved. What happened after
that long ride with CPS?
Speaker 3 (10:42):
So I went to my first home after that, which
I do not remember a single bit of my first home.
Apparently it was with a relative STD only like two months,
didn't work out for some reason and got removed from there.
It was my second home that I first remember. And
(11:03):
at this point it was kind of like you know,
the visitations where we'd see I'd see my sisters. That's
what it was more for than like my birth mother,
because I don't remember if she ever showed up for
a single visitation. Yeah, from the from the get go,
from the beginning, she was just very absent. I don't
think I ever saw my birth mother again since that
(11:25):
day to this day, never seen her.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Do you know where she is, Yes, I do, I do.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
She's she's actually in the south part of Georgia where
I stay. She's hours and hours away. I believe she
got arrested like three years ago for a big drug
bust that she was involved in. Okay, but uh yeah,
that first home was a different kind of trauma. Experienced
a lot of neglect, like the true, truest form of
(11:51):
what it means to truly be neglected. And I think
a lot of people will like not they put a
different meaning to that word. Oh you're giving me attention.
Oh you're not doing this for me. Oh you didn't
buy me the shoes I wanted. This was a neglect
that I've never experienced again in my life. Where it
was a single mother. She had two daughters and a
(12:11):
son already living there that were her biologicals, and she
always worked, so we'd either have a babysitter or the
other siblings. We would just take care of each other
and I would see her on occasion. But to be
like a five year old and to not see a
pre parent and you just have your siblings who were
all in the same age group. I was almost drowned
(12:32):
in that house. I almost bled out one time in
that house and I was assaulted and s actually assaulted
multiple times in that house, but there was no rental
guidance there. I would so like I remember Matt, he
was the oldest son, the older kind of I guess
call him foster brother, but he was the older son.
(12:54):
I would hide under cars trying to stay away from
him because he would He was just such a bitter
me guy, and you would bully me, pick on me,
push me. I remember one time, first time ever, getting
the wind knocked out of me. I was jumping on
the trampoline and he just at the mid height like
just pushed me while I was jumping and flew off,
hit the ground, just wind gone. Just hid from him
(13:16):
ever since that day. They had a pool and was
drowned and nothing once. But what really ended up getting
me in that home was the the sexual stuff, because
I knew what it was. I knew what sex was like.
It was a thing that you could do and that
adults enjoyed doing this activity. But I didn't know what
(13:38):
it was. I didn't know the morals and values behind
everything there, and it was very easy at that time
for my foster sister to take advantage of that and
because she was there were twins, the older and the younger,
like he had Matt and then you had the two twins,
but one of them was kind of like an older
(14:00):
than the other, and the older one would like bite
me and also pick on me like her brother, but
the younger one didn't. And always it just never, never
seemed like a bad thing at the time. And then
but needless to say, she started doing small things here
and there, getting in the bathtub with me, helping me clean,
(14:22):
taking me to the bathroom all the time, just normal
things until that day she was like, hey, let's go
under the bed. Plenty of room under the bed to
do things.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
And how was she and how it were you?
Speaker 3 (14:35):
I was five, looking back on it, she had to
have probably been seven to ten.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Wow, So that means that she was exposed to something.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
I had to that was my like, because I mean,
I can't contact these people again, I can't go back.
But just from what I can tell, like something had
to have happened. But needs to say, we ended up
under the bed with her pants now as kids shouldn't
and somehow I really don't I don't entirely know how,
(15:06):
but we got called like it just I mean, it's
a good thing. But I never understood how that happened.
Just got found out, I guess, and got dragged out
from under the bed one day. And of course the
daughter was, oh, YadA YadA, he told me this, told
me to do that. And I'm sitting here like I
am a little boy. I don't know what's going on.
(15:29):
And yeah, I was. That was my first time being moved,
but I was actually gonna. I was. I was thankful.
I was happy because at that time it was like,
I'm just pure neglect to me. No one's taking care
of me, no one's feeding me, no one's giving me time.
I'm just hiding, running, trying to survive. I'm pretty sure
I was living off of like candy at that point. Yeah.
(15:51):
And then to the next home, which is kind of
ironic in my mind that like, I went through only
three homes overall between the ages of I was very
lucky with that, between the ages of four and six, seven,
four and seven. I believe it was might have been six,
might have been eight. No, it was four and six, Yeah,
(16:13):
four and six, four and six. The second home, though,
is the one where it all all went out the window.
Everything just am I allowed to cuss you?
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Sure are? This is an explicit podcast.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Okay, good, because that's when everything went to shit. I uh,
this is the home where I remember the most and
the most happened to me. I grew up. I moved
from that home at missing at Tates too or no,
from Miss Patsy to a net tape.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
I had a Miss Patsy too, you did.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Oh yeah, I remember actually in your book you did
mention that. I heard that, and I was like, oh
my lord.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
He said, oh, Mad was the same as Patsy.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
No, and then I was like, oh wait, no, no, no,
it's different side of the country.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Maybe moving just to abuse my children.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
I tell you sometimes. But the yeah, at that point
is when I got moved to my what I remember
as my second home, but what I'm told was my
third home. And this is where kind of, like I
like to say, to understand, this is where my conscience
kicked in, Like this is where I went from a
kid to an adult, Like my brain switched and I
(17:21):
could finally understand things, finally understood now like what actual
like what sex was and how you can get in
trouble for stuff like that, and understood what it meant
to be neglected and to try to have a family.
I was excited, I was hopeful, and I was moved
in with a single black mother out in the hood,
(17:41):
the projects and stuff and heavily medicated. And that is
when I forgot my name, which was rough. The system
forgot my name, and Miss Annatt Tate she gave me
a new name. And for the longest time I was gused,
just gu Gus, yes, just Gus, nothing else. But I
(18:04):
grew up as Augustine being called Augie. Somewhere between those
two homes, some one just dropped the ball and I
lost my name, and for the longest time I was
just going by Gus. But I was such a timid
little kid, because this home was a little house like
two bedrooms, a bathroom. In my room was very small, concrete,
(18:30):
one little window with bars on its way up there
and old, an old like space, not even a space here.
It was like those radiators, the one like the slits
runs the water through it at bunk bed and that
was it. Yeah, that was pretty much a prison cell,
small backyard, huge field beside her house. And then all
the projects. And because I'm adhd and was a hyper
(18:54):
little boy, they put me on everything and I was
like a zombie, just going through the motions and missing
at Tate was Pentecostal Christian, which I mean, nothing wrong
with it, but there are extremists in every group. Just
like there are wonderful people in every group, there are
some people that just take it a little too far.
And she was one of those people to the point
(19:15):
where I was I was beat three times a day, religiously,
got to beat the evil out of you. I wasn't
allowed to celebrate Halloween because it was the Devil's Day.
And I remember actually being pulled out of school because
our pastor lived across the school, across the way, and
she would come pull me out of school, take me
to his house, and whoop me and send me back
(19:38):
to school three times a day like clockwork, for a
year straight. With everything, belts, spoons, rags, studded belts, you
name it. I've been beat with it. No kids, no,
not that level of beating. And I had one birthday
there when I turned sick, and that was the first
(20:01):
birthday where I watched someone else celebrate my birthday. Had Yeah,
we had like four little she got me, just like
four little cupcakes. And those cupcakes were given to her
two little nephews while I watched through a crack in
the closet because it was I either I can't remember
if I was about to get beat or if I
had just been beaten, but it was time for me
(20:24):
to go away while the kids celebrated and ATE never
saw the like I never ate those cupcakes, saw them,
didn't need them, didn't like turning sick.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
So how you were there for a year, a little
over a year, slightly over a year, and then you
went to your your third and last foster home.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
I actually was, that is my That was my third home,
was the second one that I could remember, but the
third one overall, so like the first home, I just don't.
I don't remember it at all. Yeah, it was. I
was apparently there for like two months.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
So and then clearly TP had happened because at this time,
you're visiting your siblings.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Did you visit your siblings during the time that you
were in these homes?
Speaker 3 (21:05):
I did during the first home, I did see them,
but during the second home, they one of my sisters
like got sent really far away, and then I just
never I don't. I don't think I was either I
wasn't taken or I just never saw them, because I
remember I remember seeing one of my sisters a couple
(21:26):
times while it missing at dates, but it was also
kind of one of those situations to where it's like
she was extremely controlling and didn't let me do anything,
go anywhere, see anybody. So from that point, I just
I don't remember having much contact until my adopted parents
started doing visitation with us.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
So how did you? How did you get introduced to
your adoptive parents?
Speaker 3 (21:50):
So they were they went through a third party agency.
They didn't go through this, No, they actually went through
the state, not a third party agency. And it was
a really funny story for them because my mother my
adopted mom. I consider her my mother, my dad my dad.
But she wanted to adopt three kids, siblings, and for
like two years, every like every so often, she would
(22:12):
go to my dad, what about these three? What about
these three? What about these three? And he was like, nope, nope, nope,
not doing three, not doing three. And then one day
he was out working on the car, she comes out like,
what about these three? Yep, And just like that they
decided to start coming down and spectating. I guess you'd
call it. They were looking at us like through mirrors,
you know, like the one way mirrors, and they fell
(22:37):
in love immediately, they said. And then they took us
on two or three little like visitations, and it was
really sweet because like they brought us scrap books with
like the family and everything and all the puppies because
they owned a farm. And then they had embroidered bags
and book bags for all of us and mindset gusts
on it. And my two sisters when they got in
(22:59):
the car because I was picked up first. When they
got in the car, they lost their minds. His name's
not Gus, and he's like yelling at or to be
it up to parents and they were like what And
they looked at me and like what's your name? And
I literally just went like looking at my sisters. I
didn't know my name and I didn't know who I was.
(23:21):
And then my sister like was like, his name's Augie,
and I was like I'll take that name, and they
were like yeah, they were like what do you want
to be called? And I looked at her again because
I mean at that point, my oldest sister whispered was
my mother like that's that's how you know, like siblings
latch on like that, especially when we've been yeah, and
(23:42):
so like being separated like that. She we had a
really bad habit when we were like first adopted, like
where I would I would save my food and not
eat and just keep bringing it to her, and it
was like we have to take care of her so
that she can take care of us. That was a
hard habit to break. But that's when I learned my
name again and and the the turning point. So you know,
(24:07):
the process. It takes a while, but if you're persistent
in push and force things, you can speed it up.
It's just a really hard fight. Well, they they found
out that missing at Tate was trying to adopt me,
and they left me one day with her, and I
was sitting on the front steps and she was smiling
and waving as they left, and I was sitting there
just crying my eyes out, and she literally was like,
(24:28):
stop crying right now, or I'm going to be jos
And I was like, yes, ma'am, like I had like
I couldn't even I couldn't even cry. I literally could
not be a kid. And uh. And that was when
the first like a few times of actual like abuse,
like sexual abuse actually happened. I mean, you're in the projects.
(24:49):
You got a lot of a lot of kids running
around and unsupervised in one of them. Uh, he was
good at a scaring and me, and I was able
to put it in a interesting way. I guess he
was able to talk his way into my pants or
me into.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
His really at Missus Tates or.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
With you Yeah, no, at Missus Tates.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
So I explained that I hot, what do you mean
by that?
Speaker 3 (25:19):
There was another little black boy. He was probably fourteen
or fifteen, looking back on it, and by this point,
because of my previous home, I knew what sex was
and that we don't do that as kids, like, oh,
this is against the rules, this is I get in
trouble for this. Well, this boy would come over to
(25:41):
our house all the time and we would go play
in the backyard where there were like three trees that
grew perfectly with like a little erie in between you
could stand in. So it was like a little privacy
right there. Almost. Well, needless to say, it was a
you're going to do this or I'm going to tell
miss n f TA and she is going to kill you.
So you have to do what I say. And that
(26:05):
went on for the majority of the time that I
was at that house and until the end until I
was about to literally be adopted and he found out,
and that was when I got the worst beating in
my life, because he decided to go into the house
crying and telling her everything that I had done to him.
(26:25):
And I got one hell of a beating that day. When,
of course, I.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Bet you resonated with my first book a lot at
the Miller's house, because that sounds just like the Miller's sons,
like they're just the manipulative And then and then the whole.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Time, they just knew the power that they held and
all they had.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
To do was like tell or make up a live
and the when the meat, Yeah, when it's like I'm
six years old, what could what would I know about this?
What would I know about engaging in the startingness or
continuing these types of behaviors? I mean I was six
years old, seven years old, So it's like, yes, kids
(27:02):
can learn and do not smart things at a young age,
but at the same time, like some adults, it's like
they don't read, they don't look into the situation. It's
like you're gonna have like a fourteen fifteen year old
boy come to you and be like he touched me,
And then you've got a little seven year old here like, Hi.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
That's not how that works, dude, that's that's not that's
like that video, I said, Dick on accident, No, you didn't, right,
like you've I had a client and it's a similar situation.
He was ten and he was abusing his six year
old brother because he was a victim of abuse. And
I was talking to him one day and he was like, oh, well,
my six year old cousin forced himself upon me.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
And I said, you're ten, he's six. He doesn't even
know what this is.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
He did not, And then I said, so you're saying
a six year old who's half your size, I may
pull down your pants. That's not how that works. No, No,
that's not how that works.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Right. I told him.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
I was like, you're just gonna have to be honest,
because you know, we got to get you help, but like,
we need you to be honest, and where did this start?
Where did you learned this? And then that's when we
you know, opened up and being like, Okay, there's been
a lot of past trauma there with him with other adults, right,
and unfortunately some children will revictimize other children, and we
really have to be hypervileged, hypervision about that, right, so
(28:16):
to protect to protect the kids. So your parents, so
after that last meeting what like what like initiated your
adoption to be like kind of rushed.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
So my adopted parents pretty much it came back for
a visitation and found the bruising, like pretty much, there
were signs and then I was of course like like
I don't don't leave me here, don't don't leave me,
don't leave me, don't leave me, don't leave me. And
they that was the day they left and I was
(28:46):
crying my eyes out and I told them like, please
don't leave me, and they they saw me like course
if they were leaving, losing losing my shit, and they
they they decided then in they're like there is we're
not waiting. I'm not staying in that environment. And that
they had to. They had to get me and my
sisters out of the environments that we were in because
(29:07):
I mean my sisters of course had their own their
own traumatic events to happen in their foster care systems.
And yeah, it was shortly after that we actually did,
I believe it was like in I can't remember the exact.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Okay, then, so then how is your new life with
your adoptive family.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
It was a change, I guess. Like I was saying earlier,
the first few the first few months, maybe even years,
were very different from me because firstly, I went from
not having any kind of stability whatsoever to having stability.
But then I also had to kind of relearn how
to be a kid. I was already older, had seen
(29:44):
and done things that most kids shouldn't, and I couldn't relate.
I couldn't fit in, I couldn't I couldn't really connect
with anybody in the because also one of the first
things my adopted family did was pull me off of
every medication, like immediately, just because I mean, I grew
up on a farm out there here in Georgia, and
(30:05):
their thing was, I mean, you don't have ADHD or
just a hyper kid, go run play in the plane
of the woods climatory. So that's what I did, and
most of my life was spent outdoors. I didn't have technology,
I didn't do TV, video games. I was very much
an outdoor kid. Grew up on a farm, running around
and supporting my sisters because for the first first year
(30:26):
or so, they had to feed us separately because we
would feed each other and sneak food around and hide food.
For some reason, food was a big deal of our childhood.
I don't think I was fed right as a kid. Yeah,
food and security, yeah, but things were rough. Things were rough,
and my sisters had to learn how to have a brother.
(30:49):
I had to learn how to have sisters. I was
adopted with my two older sisters. I had two younger
sisters though, who actually I reconnected with when I was seventeen.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Okay, and did your adopted with parentoni? Just move three?
Did they adopt any other children while you guys were
growing up?
Speaker 3 (31:03):
Just us three? Birth mother or no adopted mother couldn't
have kids, So it was their way of being able
to have a family, although they did definitely take a
little bit of a risk. They did do a six
eight and six eight nine year old with me being
the youngest. So actually I grew up as the youngest
(31:23):
not really knowing that I had two younger sisters and
the Yeah, no, that was it just us three, but
adopting three older kids, so that was impressive on their part. Yeah,
and the came with this benefits though definitely definitely worth it.
On that part, like medical and all that stuff was
completely taken care of, so like I was definitely able
(31:45):
to get the the help I needed. I entered therapy
immediately spent awesome. I spent ten years give or take
in therapy.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
So it's not likely like your parents were really prepared
themselves before they brought me, because they kind of waited
and they knew that they wanted a sibling group of three,
so they probably.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Did a lot of work, you know, the mare and themselves.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
Yeah. Now, as being like an adult, I've gone through
cynical stages and optimistic stages and for a while though,
there was a little bit of animosity I guess, even
between my adopted family because my parents apparently, like the
last part of my growing up years, like I didn't know,
(32:26):
they wanted to get divorced. They faked their marriage for
like five or six years just so that we could
have intact parents. But when I turned seventeen, not right
when I turned seventeen, but I was in boarding school
at seventeen because I was losing my mind, and they
just got divorced while I was in boarding school. Then
(32:48):
when I came out, I was eighteen and parents were divorced.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
So what did you do after eighteen? Did you go
on to go to college?
Speaker 3 (32:54):
Like?
Speaker 1 (32:54):
How did that separation affect you? Did it affect you
at all?
Speaker 3 (32:57):
It? Did it? Did? I actually didn't. I didn't graduate
high school or go to college.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Yeah, Both my sisters graduated and ended up going to college.
But I actually I went through some really rough stages
there because for a while I had everything straight and narrow.
I was doing good, but I had major trust and
attachment issues. So it's like I wasn't really able to
trust anybody or connect with anybody, because firstly, I'd been
(33:27):
through so many different things and I couldn't understand emotion
the same way as everybody else. But finally I ended
up learning to trust, and I fell in love as
a young buck, as people do, and I got scared
and cheated, lost her, and then lost my mind, started
(33:49):
doing drugs, dropped out of high school, stole my car
from my parents, stole the piggy bank, and drove from
here to California, and then turned around and my engine
blew up in Reno, Nevada, and I spent three or
four months there trying to kill myself did not go
(34:10):
well because I didn't I didn't have the support from
my parents that had just broken. I just lost the
girl that I loved, and it all just kind of
came back and all just slammed into me at once
because at the same time, I was putting my children's
pastor from the church that I had grown up in jail.
The court case ended the day that I ran away.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
That was from your adoption, the pastor from your adoption.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
So like I was adopted and raised in a local
church and then at the age of fifteen ish or fourteen,
No wait, no, was I was fifteen? Yeah, I was fifteen.
At the age of fifteen, my parents wanted to find
me a mentor, so they went to Bill George of
the church the Orchard and Logan Bille, Georgia, and he
decided to be. He agreed to be my mentor, picked
(34:56):
me up, spend time with me, take me out to
teach me more and values, helped me with a weight
training exercises, working out, lifting, stretching, and would helped me
take my measurements for like my body mass index around
the neck, biceps, legs, chest. Well, never thought anything of it,
never said anything of it. Then those stretches and chests
(35:19):
turned it like stretches and measurements turned into a little like, oh,
let me lift up your pants here to measure here,
and it just kept progressing. But I never thought anything
of it, because kind of like how things were in
the in your book, like you went to that temporary
foster home. I think it was. I think this is
the one. But yeah, yeah, he never did anything like
crazy or inappropriate like, so I didn't think anything of it,
(35:42):
and he never really touched me until one day I
was over at his place and I was I've always
been a very tense type person because of all the
trust issues and everything that happened. And he was like,
let me give you a massage to help loosen up
your muscles. I even let me help you relax. And
that massage went way too far. But still nothing in
(36:03):
my mind that registered as inappropriate or that I wanted
to tell someone. So I was like, I'll just let
it be what it is. I guess this is what
it means when you trust somebody and you're supposed to
like engage with them, I needs to say. I went
home that day and I was just walking around my house.
My mom comes home, Hey, Mom, how's your day. It
was good. I got a full body massage today. Oh
(36:23):
that's wonderful me too, huh, because I mean I was
a fifteen year old and she was like, what do
you mean you get a full buddy massage today? I'm like, oh, yeah,
well I was that like with Bill George. She's like,
come here. I sat me down and like had me
tell her everything, and I was like, there's nothing, Like,
what's the big deal. He didn't do anything. He didn't
touch me anywhere or anything. And my mom was sitting
(36:45):
there like, Okay, yeah, no, you're defending this man. You
don't understand. You were completely butt ass naked on his
bed in his room, unsupervised by anybody. And I was like, yeah,
you gotta point now that I'm thinking about it. And
before calling the cops or doing anything, we set up
in like a go pro camera an audio recorder under
(37:08):
a seat called him and it was like, Hey, his
dad's going to be gone. Can you just come over
talk with me and my son and then we can
figure out what's going on here, Like my dad doesn't
have to be involved, Like, let's just talk this out
and he came over. We had those recording devices set up,
spilled the beans on everything, told every detail and news say,
(37:28):
since we did this before contact any authority or anything,
we were considered working independently and not as like an
assistant to the state, so it was all admissible. It
could all be put into court. And this the man
got hit with the hammer perfect like community member needs
to say, like thirty other victims came forward.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Wow, he was a.
Speaker 3 (37:50):
High school football coach, so I guess that's where he
learned the tactic that he used on me, because he
used that tactic of a lot of other boys.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
It's always a pillar of the community can rely on that.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
You can always rely on that.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
And I remember having to like close all my social media's.
We weren't allowed to, like we stopped getting the newspaper
because the amount of backlash that I got for being
a minor that couldn't have a voice and the name
couldn't be posted. No one knew who came forward with
these allegations. They just knew that the name couldn't be public.
And I sitting in church between two people that I
(38:25):
cared about and had known most of my life and
hearing them talk about how terrible this person must be
that is accusing him of these things, and how it
is just such a terrible thing, and how they're such
a terrible person, and how they would try to do
this to someone so respectable. I had to stop going
to church, had to cut off my social life, had
to completely take a step back until the day where
(38:46):
a court came and I was like I was called
to the stand and it was like everyone just kind
of you could see it in their eyes, like and
did a Yeah it didn't go well, but he was charged, convicted,
just came up for parole and actually just got denied.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Good good, So tag after you know that experience in Nevada,
What what did you do after that?
Speaker 3 (39:09):
After Nevada? So I got I oeded in Nevada and died,
And yeah, it was rough. I was I think I
was dead for like seven minutes or something. Came back
in after everything had cleared my system and everything, because
I took off running like a bullet and I woke
up the next day like under a bridge, of course,
and that was a church group feed giving out breakfast,
(39:32):
feeding people and I was just kind of like on
the opposite side of the bridge. They found me. I
was like, hey, what's up? And I explained who I
was and what was going on. They contacted my family
back in Georgia and uh that church actually came together.
Kept denying on me, constantly fed me, clothed me, bathed me,
put me on a bus and sent me all the
way back and I was I was recovered by my
(39:54):
parents from the bus stop, taken immediately to a hospital
that was skinning bones. I actually have one picture from there,
like when they were holding me up on either side
of them and I'm in between them, and I'd lost
so much weight I was pretty much a skeleton and
spent I spent some time there. Took me two years,
(40:16):
give or take, getting sober. It was a rough fight.
Plenty of relapses is part of the process. Got sober
over the span of two or three years. Being that
I grew up in construction, I started to work on cars.
I was like, I kind of already know how to
do hands stuff. Started working on cars, stayed clean, started
(40:37):
jumping around a lot, and now I am a fully
blown mechanic.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
That's awesome. Congtulations.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
I was able to thank you. I do appreciate that,
so I was able to definitely bring it back and
figured out who I was. I'm grateful for the therapy
more than anything out there. I definitely am a huge
advocate for therapy for anyone who's been through anything. Even
if you haven't been through traumatic things, therapy can still
be a wonderful tool for anybody who wants to take
(41:06):
advantage of it. Because I definitely learned how to manage,
how to cope, and just how to overcome things and
have strengthen myself to get through all these things. But
it also helped me understand that I'm I'm not normal.
I'll never be normal. I'm not I'm not your average Joe,
but I am.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
And you know, and that's okay too.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
To realize that's something that I think in my older age,
I'm starting to be more okay with. Ever since I
was a kid six seven years old, I've always tried.
I've had I've had to be excellent, even through all
the trauma I had to, you know, persevere, and I
think sometimes perseverance is definitely a trauma response. But that
(41:51):
idea of I'm never going to be normal, like I'm
always going to have different emotional responses. I'm always going
to have different emotional expectations, and that can be just
like daunting, especially in relationships or friendships, where like I
have a different expectations for my friends and most people
be like, that's really just crazy for you to expect
that of friends, But then they don't understand. You know
(42:13):
where I come from and how I am guarded, and
it does take a lot ticket to know me, and
when you do, I do have kind of like attachment issues,
like I'm very attached to my friends with family and
then also like my spouse and now as of the
thirty three year old a man, I'm just like, it's
okay to be not normal, But also what does that
(42:34):
now look like? Because I've gotten to a point in
my life where the success no longer it no longer
hides the pain and trauma anymore.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
It's like you can't run away anymore.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
I can't, and I keep doing I'm going to do
this project, and I'm want to do this, and I'm
going to run for senate. And it's just like, do
you want to do those things because they're put your
passionate about it? Or do you want to just keep
making bigger and bigger and bigger projects that you have
to do and you know you'll accomplish it and you
know you'll do great.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
At it because that's just who you are.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
But that's also a way for you to just be
like I'm just I'm I'm biding my time right from
real happiness and real growth.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
And I honestly I don't know.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
What that looks like because I always thought real happiness
and growth would be, you know, having a home and
being successful and being quote normal.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
But that's not not normal.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
It is not normal setting on the washing machine.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Right, So like I'm just like, so, what where where
does your heart belong?
Speaker 1 (43:30):
And where does your heart want to be?
Speaker 2 (43:31):
And that's just like a journey that I think I'm
going to start next year or maybe after my birthday
next month, and just start that next journey of my
new normal, right, And I don't know what that might
look like, but I do know that it's okay not
to be what society deems as normal. Yeah, and that
and that might even be with Like I was just
talking to a friend about how a lot of there's
(43:54):
couples who because I was like, I want to take
a year or two years to just travel the world
by myself, and the like, well what about your I
was like, what about them? Like why do I like,
I'll give them a phone call? Like we're still married.
But like that's another thing. Why do I have to
change my entire life because I fell in love with someone?
Speaker 1 (44:14):
Right?
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Why does that have to be the norm? That doesn't happen?
Why do we got to live in the same house?
That doesn't got to be None of this has to
be normal, right.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
And that's and that's what like this is one big
thing for me, Like it irritates me. Is like I
don't like being told how I should live or that
you should be this way or that way when I'm
sitting here, like there's no two lives are the same.
No two people ever go through the exact same situation
and live the exact same life. No one is normal.
Everyone is unique, Everyone is different, and that's nothing wrong
(44:45):
with that. If I want to live one way and
you want to live a different way, we can both live.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Absolutely, And it's a Absolutely it's.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
Been rough because it's like my older sister, my oldest
sister actually turned out to be into females and has
been dating this one girl for like six years now
and it's been wonderful. But she is a little on
the extremist side and has come to me several times
and been like, you should be gay. Well, you're definitely gay.
It's just because of what you went through and the
(45:16):
gay Yeah, it's like, oh you, it's just because of
the things you went through in foster care that you
don't like guys. And I'm sitting here like, excuse.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
Me, that's crazy.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
Yeah. When I love everybody, I don't care who you are,
what you are, where you are. I love everybody. And
I feel like I probably would have turned out like
polyamorous or bisexual if certain things hadn't happened to me.
But because of these things that have happened to me,
it's kind of like the opposite. I can still love
everyone equally and treat them equally, but I'm just not
(45:46):
intrigued by the male form. It's just not my preference.
And then I've had I've had other friends who I've
told my story to be like, I'm surprised you're not racist,
and I'm like, I can't blame you. That comes from
it because of miss inn at Tate there she was black. Yeah,
and then the first dude who's sexually moist. Tom Me
(46:06):
was black that home where I was beat constantly, and
I'm like, nah, I can't judge her. That's one person.
She was not right up here. That was one dude
who knows what happened to that poor kid that made
him want to do that to me.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
People try to do that same thing with me.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
My adoptive parents like, oh, you can't blame all white people,
and I'm like, I don't blame all white people. I
don't think all white people are bad or evil, but
I do know that a lot of them are racist,
and most of them have internalized racism so that it
doesn't work with the flipway.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
Yeah, And I'm sitting there.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Because I under saying your POV is like, yeah, not
all black people are like that, and there are a
lot that will be. But there's that's not systemic, right, missus.
Tate is not sustemic. Not child abuses systemics. So that's
that's the norm, no matter what, Black, White, Latino, Asian,
they abuse children. They they abuse some children, right. But
(46:59):
I people all often ask me that's why that's why
you go so hard against white people, And I was like, well, no,
I go so hard against white people because they are
colonizing minds, like they have a colonized mindset. They think
they own everything, and then they weaponize tears in their stories.
But I said, but I definitely don't think it's all.
But we shouldn't be talking about all or not. It
should be if there's enough, there's enough, right, it's all,
(47:22):
and it's all into there's none. Just like that's my
idea when it comes to men. I don't think that
every man is a violent predator, but I do know
that most are.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
So I'm just gonna.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
Saying there's a good number of them out there. You
know this this, Oh sorry, they'll go ahead. The third
biggest change in my life that this has all had
that every time I say this, people raise their eyebrows
or have a comment because I had to grow up
so fast from so young. I am twenty six years old,
(47:54):
my girl is forty two years old. I have a
twenty one year old stepson and a sixteen year old
step daughter, and I handle everything wonderfully. But people are
always like, you date a forty two year old woman
with two kids, and I'm like, well, no one else
has that same maturity level that understanding, and it took
a long time for me to learn that I can't
(48:17):
really get along with my age group. They're also young,
and I'm sitting here like to meet someone who's twenty
three younger than me but clearly has that same level
of just intellect and maturity and understanding of the world
and the bad side of it.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
Absolutely, absolutely well, Tag, thank you so much for coming
on the show and being vulnerable and sharing your lived experience.
I ask every guest, what's one piece of advice that
you would give to and adopted your former foster youth?
So what's one thing you would say to a little
boy that has gone through something similar that or is
going through something similar that you experienced?
Speaker 1 (48:52):
One people advice to give.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
The keep going, Just keep going, one day at a time.
It gets better. At some point everything will just be
a memory. Then you'll be able to sit back and
dis handled it. If you're in that situation currently, it
will pass, and as time goes on, it's all wins,
(49:14):
it will it will pass.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
I love that well.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Tag, thank you so much for coming on the Wards
of This Day podcast. I'm so excited to share your
story and thank you again for sharing it and I
hope that the listeners, especially I'll share this with men,
share this with young boys in the foster carerent adoption systems,
even if you don't know if they've been through anything.
Because like we said, text has seventy five percent of men,
that's one out of that's three out of four, right,
three out of four men have been abused in some
(49:41):
way or for shape, it's sexually in their lives.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
And I don't think we talk about that enough.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
And that also, like like Taz was saying, that has
you know, long term effects, rather the addiction, rather be suicide,
rather it be you know, attachment issues.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
Rather it be progressed maturity, because you know, even.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
Though it's great that you are more of Atrey, shouldn't
have had to be a twenty six year old feeling
like you can't get in with other twenty six year olds, right,
because I have a fact that that also, I can
see why people raise their eyes like, well you you
were more closer to her her child age to their
her age, right. But then when people don't understand your promise,
so you know, that could also be something that could
be hard to navigate.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
But that's not that's not something.
Speaker 2 (50:19):
That that you chose. It's more so, like you said,
it's your maturity level because you know that's forced the church.
Speaker 1 (50:24):
So by China, I want to thank you guys again
for being here.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
And like I say every week, you always shine your
life because you never know you might be guiding in
a dark place. So the next time you guys, always
shine your life
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