175 [Estrangement Series] Justin Part 2
/Transcript
Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/175
Haley Radke: [00:00:00] You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is Episode 175, Justin. I'm your host, Haley Radke. I am honored to be able to bring you Part 2 of Justin's story. So if you did not hear last week's episode, make sure you go and find Episode 174. This is going to be a direct continuation of Part 1.
Justin shares about a desire to add his original surname back, which causes a huge fight. And then ultimately his son's suicide attempts bring extreme clarity to his relationship with his adoptive family. I want to give you a trigger warning. During this episode, we are going to mention death by suicide and also discuss suicide attempts by a child.
So if you know those will be harmful for you to listen to, I want you to honor that nudge your body is giving you to push pause and come back when you're [00:01:00] feeling safe and have supports in place to listen with or find another episode that will be a better fit for you. We are going to wrap up with some recommended resources. And, as always, links to everything we'll be talking about are on the website adopteeson.com. Let's listen in.
Justin: This is where you enter the story.
Haley Radke: Oh, great. This doesn't sound good.
Justin: Yeah, so, sorry to bring you here but you are to blame. I was always a big podcast listener since, whenever. I loaded them on my little iPod shuffle, always been into that. And I guess about five years ago I thought, I wonder if there are any about adoptees or adoption? And so I did that, and yours came up. And I think it was maybe the third episode or something like that, it was very early on, but I remember listening to it and listening to whoever's story it was and just being like, [00:02:00] Holy crap, these are my people! After that therapeutic thing that I'd done as a young person, I'd gone through a lot of therapy and a search for identity and all of this stuff. There was the whole racial component of "Am I Black? Am I not Black? What am I?" And then thinking, Can I find my identity there, or is it that I grew up overseas? And maybe if I'm with those people I'll feel connected. And then I became Muslim, and I was like, maybe that's the tribe that I belong to. It never fully felt comfortable until I started listening more about adoptions and adoptees. And I had read, I think that actually this was when I did my search the social worker might have given me The Primal Wound, and it blew me away at that time. But I think that was the only book I'd read about adoption, and I think like probably a lot of people I could [00:03:00] only read it once, right? It's just so hard to go back into. But I really felt a connection and I realized this is big. That this is big. So it got me thinking about this more in terms of my identity, and it made me want to press my parents a little bit more about my adoption because, like I said, this had always been: "We just adopted you because we always wanted to adopt you." That had always felt like it's not the complete story. That doesn't make sense to me. So I wanted to find out about that. I wanted to find out about more. Like I'm sure everybody who's tried to broach this with their adoptive parents, it's tiny little, baby steps trepidatiously trying to get into this.
So one of the first things I did–and this again comes from [Reshma McClintock] being on your show–was to write a piece for Dear Adoption. I agonized about that in terms of whether or not to use my full name and decided [00:04:00] to and then shared it publicly on Facebook so that my parents would see it. Now, my sister read it and then wrote in the comments of the thing: "I was happy that you were adopted." I mean, if you've read any of those pieces, but certainly if you read my piece, like, That's the message that you got out of it? Oh my God. But my parents didn't say anything, nothing. Nothing at all. They may not have read it but they know it was there. Whatever, but they didn't say anything. But still, this is over years asking little bits, making little steps and finally about two years ago or so, I was texting with my mom about this and she said, The next time we come up why don't we have a conversation about this. So we did. We sat down to have this conversation. And, I mentioned before this face that my mom gets. This shielded-up face of [00:05:00] "Okay, tell me. I'm not gonna share anything. I'm not gonna be vulnerable, but tell me. Go ahead and tell me." So not the greatest, not like a therapeutic environment for deeply sharing your feelings. So I was tapping around the heart of things and kind of getting at it. And, to be fair, it did feel like there was some progress being made. I learned some things. This is where I learned about their choice to adopt from the difficult-to-adopt pool and some other things. There was a period of three or four months of communicating back and forth with my mom via text where it really felt like, okay, we're getting somewhere, or she's understanding. I'm showing understanding of why they were so upset. And this is where I learned more about my dad. He didn't get out of bed for two days. He was, like, catatonic. I mean–
Haley Radke: The nervous breakdown. Wow. Yeah ...
Justin: So I felt like, okay, I'm getting somewhere. And I was so positive about it. I was on [00:06:00] this one chat with both my parents. My father wasn't writing because he wasn't good at texting. But I got off and I was saying to my wife, Oh, this is really great. I feel like we're making a breakthrough. My wife was like, Okay. She's a little bit more skeptical about it. I think she's always been a little bit more clear-eyed about my parents than I was. But I was like, Oh, okay, great. And my dad finally texted. He wrote: "I'm not really good at texting, but let me send you an email tomorrow with my thoughts." And I was like, Oh, okay, great. So I got the email, and it wasn't so much that the email was openly hostile to me, although there were some things in there that were criticisms, veiled criticisms of me and who I was. It was just, it was very... I don't know. It was very much his perspective and why his perspective was his perspective, and [00:07:00] this is his perspective. And I wrote back. I said: "Wow, that was really upsetting. I was really surprised." And he wrote back: "Oh, your mom didn't think there was anything wrong with it. It was sent with the best of intentions." And I waited for a little while thinking, Okay, let me give them the chance to ask what was upsetting about it for me. Because it wasn't a hostile response. I just said: "That was upsetting." And they didn't. So I was like, Maybe they don't know? Maybe they really don't know? So I went through line by line and was like, This is upsetting, this is upsetting, this is a reason, this is a reason, this is a reason. I think it got a little bit angrier as it went along, but they were valid points. And my dad's response was like, "Whoa, It was sent in the best of intentions. Can't we just put this behind us and move on?" And my mom's response was: "I don't know that you know how difficult this was for your father [00:08:00] to write," which I'm sure it was. But it was really hard for me too; all of these things were hard for all of us. "I don't think you really understand how difficult this was. Sounds like you're upset. Maybe we shouldn't come up and visit." There was this planned visit for them to come up. And at that point, I was like, I've got two options. I can say, "Okay, yeah come up," but it was come up, we're not gonna talk about this. But if we come up, the assumption is, you've calmed down, you've gotten over this, and we'll come up as though everything was okay. Or I could say, "Okay. All right. Yeah, maybe you shouldn't come up." And I really just felt like I don't want to play this game. I don't want you to come up and me to have to pretend like things are okay. So I said: “Okay, maybe we should wait and revisit it later." After that was about a year of not any real communication. [00:09:00] There were some birthday cards, some little texts back and forth, but not really any communication and certainly not addressing this. And then I got an email from my dad that had "Reconciliation" as the title of it, and he wrote: "It's been over a year. I think it's time to move on," or something like this. "You need to call your mom" or "You should call your mom and tell her how you feel." I wrote back, I said: “I'm open to reconciliation. I don't think that I'm ready to talk right now. If my mom wants to know how I feel, she's welcome to ask me.” And nothing. No response. Nothing from that.
So then moving on to what sort of led to where we are now. So in the early part of the pandemic, my middle son had a serious suicide attempt. He overdosed on his depression medication. He told us about it right away. We went to the emergency room, and he only ended up spending the night under observation in the emergency room. So the physical [00:10:00] impacts weren't that severe. And then we got him enrolled in a partial health hospitalization, a couple of weeks with that, and it was a positive experience there. After that, it was really a struggle to try and find therapists, psychiatrists, a system of support for him. I think anybody who has gone through trying to find a therapist, especially for a teenager, can appreciate how challenging it is. And we were fortunate in that we had good insurance, we were both educated, we knew how to negotiate. But still, it was just such a trial, and we were actually just starting to get some good foundations, and we'd found him a psychiatrist who he clicked with. Things seemed to be maybe moving in the right direction, and then he had a second attempt. This one was much more serious of an overdose, where that put him in the hospital, in the ICU for about a week. And [00:11:00] suicide is one of those things. You can't be angry at the person who's done it because it's the only choice that they thought was available to them. But I think everybody knows there's ripple-on effects to everyone. This was back in October. And I would say, thankfully, my son is in a much better place today than he was then. I think the thing that I've come to have to accept in it is that…I wanted to say there was recently, relatively recently in the news a US congressman whose son was 25 years old who had committed suicide–my son's younger than that–and I wanted so much for this to be, like, the it. This to be the last. We got it figured. Everything's okay. Everything's going to be okay. And I've realized that there's no guarantees [00:12:00] about anything. That the only thing is that he's okay today, and that has to be enough. That today he's okay, and we have supports in place, and he's working and things are moving in the right direction. But all we really have is today, and I am thankful for that.
So with the first attempt, we hadn't really reached out to family for help because it had been contained. The school knew and stuff, but it was within a smaller group. With the second one, it was just much more serious. There were about two or three days where he was conscious but he doesn't remember any of those days where he was out of it. He had what they call serotonin syndrome, and he was hospitalized. He'd get great care, but you don't know what's going to happen. So my wife has a large extended family. A lot of them are here. We got a lot of support from them. Her parents came down. A [00:13:00] lot of people were offering to help, and this seemed like an opportunity to bring my parents in, in a sort of a crisis situation where, what you always hear about, right? Family comes together in crisis, and that maybe through this we'd be able to overcome that other thing, the other problem. So my wife had actually suggested having them pick up my eldest son, who was in college, and drive him back because he was on the way from there. And so we did that, and then they brought him back.
Now, besides that, the extended family made a lot of offers for help, both financial and food and whatever. There was just a lot of support that was unasked for but was immediately given, including from my biological family as well, and thankfully a lot of prayers too. But in arranging for my parents to come, [00:14:00] they'd have normally stayed at my in-laws place. I told them there's not going to be any room there, so they may have to stay in a hotel. And they said, "Oh, that's okay," or, "We can stay with you." Anyway, I ended up arranging a hotel for them. This is while my son's in the hospital, and I paid for the hotel. And again, this is all during this, and my parents never thanked me for that. Never said, "Oh, don't worry, we can take care of it ourselves." Never paid me back for that in any of this. And again, so it's just little things, right? Little things that build up.
So there's really three events from this, three instances from this that have really led me to the place where I am now, where I really feel comfortable saying: “I don't want to have a relationship with you," or, "I'm not going to actively pursue anything like that." The first was that my wife and I were basically tag teaming at the hospital. She would stay there in the nights, then I would come there, and we were lucky that even though [00:15:00] with COVID protocols in the pediatric ICU, they would allow parents to be there. So we were fortunate that we were even able to be there. So I'd even said to my parents when they came up, "I don't think I'm going to be able to see you during this time." And they said, "Oh, that's fine. We can take care of ourselves." But my wife had come home from there and I was at the hospital. And my mom came by to pick up our kids to take them to the mall. And she just walked in the house without knocking, which for my family, maybe not such a big deal, but certainly for my wife's family. And I think for a lot of people, that's not okay to do. But my wife was standing there in the kitchen and my mom put on that same face, that iron face. And my wife was trying to make small talk and was like, Oh, virtual hug, like COVID protocol. But my mom didn't ask how my wife was, didn't ask how my son was, didn't ask. My [00:16:00] father was just in the car. She didn't call him in to come, she just stood there while my wife tried to make some small talk. And after she left, my wife called and was so, so upset about being treated that way because it's like, what have I done to deserve to be treated that way? And I think, I'm sure you can relate to this, but there's this way in which we'll allow ourselves to be treated in a way and think that it's okay but once it happens to someone that we love, it's not okay. My wife felt so stupid for having suggested my parents come and so hurt in this vulnerable time. But also, I knew that me saying anything to them wasn't going to do anything. I didn't have the energy to have that conversation and it wasn't likely to go anywhere positive anyway.
So the second thing was towards the end of the time when they were going to take my eldest back [00:17:00] to college. I texted them and I'd been in text contact with them this whole time, updating them on what was going on and any developments. And I said: “We're still switching off, back and forth. I don't think I'm going to get the chance to see you while you're here, but thanks so much for what you did and I really appreciate it.” And the text I got back from my mom was: “You don't even have 10 minutes for us?” And I didn't respond. Because what can you say? There's nothing to say. I didn't have the energy for it. I didn't, there's nothing so I just didn't. I didn't respond. They dropped off my son. And then my mom texted me and said they dropped him off. And I think that I maybe communicated a little bit about how my other son was doing via text. And I was in similar communication with my sister, updating her a little bit. But then my son had come home, and it's [00:18:00] this second shift from the crisis of is he going to live to what next? The problem still exists and how are we going to get help? But one weight is taken off and you feel the effect of it. So I was like, I don't have it in me to keep people updated on this thing. There were only a couple of people who I was even talking to, and I'd shared all this information with my biological family. They had been respectful like, When you want to tell us, tell us, but we're not going to push you for this. But my sister was like, Oh, I'm so worried about your son. Can you update me? And I just was like, Yeah, he's doing okay. Thanks for asking. And I haven't heard from my sister since then. I said that, and there was no response back. So anyway, a couple of weeks later, I hadn't been in contact with my parents either, [00:19:00] but I got a similar text from them saying: "Could you update us on your son's status?" Just that. No “How are you doing? How's everything?" No concern for their actual son, right? But just, Could you update us on this? And I didn't respond because, again, it just felt like such a slap in the face and it didn't have any purpose. So it was really from those things where I was like, Okay, I'm done.
So all of this happened at the end of last year, of 2020. I teach at a community college, and through this I finished my semester. But when the next semester was about to start, I just... Anybody who's a teacher in these times, it's stressful and there were a lot of other things going on, and it just seemed overwhelming. But I ended up taking family medical leave and took a 12-week leave of absence. [00:20:00] So this is something in the United States that you can get to take care of a child. You don't get paid. It's not like that, but, at least, you can do that and you can keep your benefits and you can keep your job, so that was fortunate. And during that time I've gone back to therapy. And there's two things really that my therapist has really helped me with in feeling more comfortable about my decision to just pull back. And the one thing was, she talks about the power of “and,” because one of the problems I always struggled with with my parents was that there's good parts to them. There's nice things that they do. There's positive things that they do, and I always felt like when I was upset that either they had to be horrible, awful people or they had to be good people, that it was this choice. And she was saying, get used to using the word “and.” Like my parents are good; they do a lot of good things. And they're horrible in a lot of ways. Both of these two things can [00:21:00] exist. And so in viewing that, the decision that I make is based on both these things exist. Just because they do something nice for me doesn't mean I have to continue having a relationship with them. That the decision is mine to make. The second thing that she said that was really helpful was, think about if someone said this to your children. And I think for those of us with children that resonates immediately. If somebody treated my kids the way that my parents treat me, I wouldn't have it. It's completely unacceptable. There's no question. When it's happening to me, maybe, I don't know. Maybe I deserve it. All of those things that go through your mind. But when you start thinking about whether you would let this happen to someone else, it really changes your perspective. That has helped give me a lot of confidence in being like, "You know what? I need to take care of myself."
One of the things you did in your first estrangement podcast, I think that you [00:22:00] asked a question later on towards the end where you said: "Do you miss them?" And she said, No, I don't feel I miss them. And I forget if she said this, but this is something that I feel: I miss the idea of them, right? And I think that she might have said the same thing. I miss the idea of having parents who are caring and supportive and who care about me and who are concerned about my life. I miss the idea of that, but that's not the nature of the relationship that I have with my parents. It is what it is, but it's not that. Because my wife asked me that same question, too, and it was the same as what I came to with my biological mother. No, I don't miss that. I wasn't getting anything from it. I was giving a lot because I felt responsible, because I felt like I should be doing this. And certainly for those of us who are religious, sometimes that weights us down because religiously, [00:23:00] particularly in Islam, there's this, not deification, but there's this raising of parents of when they get old, don't be angry with them. And you're supposed to be a good son, all of this weight on you. But you get to a point where this is not helpful. This relationship is not a useful relationship. I'm not getting anything out of it, and it's actually harmful for me. And if it's harmful for me, then it's harmful for my family. It's harmful for my wife that she doesn't fully have me because there's this part of me that's trapped worrying about my parents or of that monkey. There's that monkey that's over there grabbing that spiky monkey. And that has helped me, that has helped me a lot in accepting my decision and not worrying about what's going to happen in the future. Are you going to regret this or any of those things? But to just really focus on I don't like the way [00:24:00] you're treating me. The way you're treating me is not acceptable. I don't have to explain it. I don't want to hang out with you. I don't want to be around you. And in a lot of ways, my parents make it easy because they're not proactively reaching out to me. And I'm also lucky in that–your children are a little bit younger than mine–my children are all teenagers in high school. Their relationship with their grandparents has already happened. They have a relationship with their grandparents, and if they choose to cons- continue it, it can go on without me. So I feel like I've done that already, so I don't also have that additional weight that I think especially people who have small children might feel. And especially when you have small children and you need something from your parents in terms of them taking care of your kids. So that, and I haven't actively talked about it with my children but certainly their relationship with my parents is separate from mine, and they can have one if they choose [00:25:00] to, but I just choose not to.
Haley Radke: I'm curious about that for you then. What's it like for you watching them have a relationship with your parents? Or is it so the token kind of maybe phone call on your birthday sort of thing?
Justin: It’s that.
Haley Radke: Okay. Okay.
Justin: Yeah, it's that. There isn't much there. There isn't much there. So the relationship wasn't much more than that beforehand either. A birthday call or the birthday gift and stuff like that. So yeah, the great thing is that they all have their own phones so it doesn't involve me at all.
Haley Radke: So you don't have to see it.
Justin: Yeah.
Haley Radke: Oh, man. Wow. Thank you for sharing. You've gone through a lot of challenging things, and answered questions that I had in my head for you. You just answered. So I appreciate that very much. Something I found fascinating, maybe this will be the question that I wrap us up with and then we do our recommended resources. But you mentioned this actually a couple [00:26:00] times, that we allow ourselves to be treated in a certain way, but we're not going to allow someone we love to be treated that way. It's easier for us to step outside ourselves and see it for someone else and not ourselves. What does that mean to you as an adopted person? And I'll just speak for myself that I've had a couple of different therapists point out to me that maybe you hate yourself. There's some self-loathing. Like, oh, I know it doesn't feel good, but the way we allow ourselves to just be trampled on, but then you see it happen to someone you love and you're like, "Whoa, that's not okay."
What does that mean for you to make that observation about yourself?
Justin: I think that for me as an adoptee there was a point in time that abandonment or the potential of getting in trouble with my parents or with [00:27:00] an authority figure, as well, was tied to a fear of death. So that fear, it wasn't that you were just upsetting this person. It's like the potential is that you could die if these people abandon you. But that would be my connection with the adoption world. And I'd mentioned before that feeling I had when I changed my name and there was all this conflict. Really, it was like an abject terror of I don't know how I will continue to exist if this happens to me. I think there's different levels of that with different people. But for me, it's been really helpful being able to step outside myself and to put other people in my position, rather than myself in other people's position.
Haley Radke: Thank you for sharing your story.
Justin: You're welcome.
Haley Radke: I'm sorry for your losses, your [00:28:00] brother and your father, and thinking of your son and hope he makes a full recovery and finds healing. Is there anything else you want to share with us before we do recommended resources? I know you've listened for a long time. You've gone through the wringer with us. Is there anything you want to say, especially just to adoptees like yourself, that you think they need to hear?
Justin: No. But the thing that I do want to say, and I know a lot of people say this to you, but the resource that you've provided to the adoptee community is invaluable because there's something about hearing another person, an inexpert person telling their story that is so powerful that I don't think that you can get from reading books or research-related things. But that you've created this space and at a cost to yourself in that you put yourself out [00:29:00] there for the bullets, right? For the arrows and the stuff. And not just you, all of the people who are working in the adoptee space. I follow people on Twitter and just hearing of, like, why are you being mean to these people? And just to stand up and say something just gives so many other people courage to say something. And that I've always secretly, like you said, I've been listening since the beginning. I've always secretly wanted to be on the show. But this was an opportunity where I felt like I could give something back, and I feel that for me, you deserve and everybody else deserves– Other people are standing up. If we can stand up a little bit and give back in whatever way we can, I would encourage everybody to do that, particularly to support your show. Because the Patreon group is really a nice community, a safe community [00:30:00] to be a part of. It's a good way to give back. Even if you never go on it, just write it off on your taxes, right? As charity.
Haley Radke: I'm not a charity. So if I was American, I think that would be easier to do that. But thank you so much for those kind words. I agree, there is such power in sharing our stories, and I think my pinned tweet is, I don't know, you can fact-check me on what it is. But it's something to the effect of: Do you really know the adoptee in your life? Do you actually know their story? Because people will, the doubters will always say: “Well, I know so-and-so is adopted, and they're fine.” It's just this offhanded, ridiculous thing people will say to us. It's like, really? Like, how do you actually know their intimate feelings about the impact adoption has had on their life? You couldn't possibly unless you were a safe [00:31:00] enough person for us to share it with.
Justin: Or unless they're ready to share because I think so many of us aren't ready to really analyze ourselves.
Haley Radke: Absolutely. And so there is a huge cost to someone like Justin and my other guests in sharing these very difficult things. So I appreciate it so much that you're willing to share. Okay, what did you want to share as a resource with us today? I was going to just say, Oh my gosh, all that stuff that your therapist said, that's good. Write that down.
Justin: It is good stuff, yeah. The thing that I was going to share, I've gotten a lot of different therapy books over the year, but there's a book called Self-Therapy. I forget the person who wrote it.
Haley Radke: Jay Earley, E-A-R-L-E-Y.
Justin: Yeah. And anyway, I think nothing can really compensate for having a good face-to-face therapist, someone with whom you have a good relationship and who understands you and [00:32:00] what your issues are. I think you're going to talk about Internal Family Systems, but it was something that gives you another way of looking at yourself and working through things and seeing things in a different way. And particularly because of the fact it can be so challenging finding somebody who fits with you, I think that it's a very structured book that you can work through. I didn't finish it. You work through it however much you want. My wife had the physical book. I had the audiobook. I just listened to it, and it was helpful for me. She preferred doing it by hand. But I think both ways are helpful and useful.
Haley Radke: Thank you. It says, Self-Therapy: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Wholeness and Healing Your Inner Child Using IFS. And yeah, you mentioned Internal Family Systems therapy. We actually had an IFS therapist on. Actually, she's been on a few times. [00:33:00] But she has a really good description of what IFS is in Episode 69, so you can go back and check that out. And then in Episode 71 she talks about IFS with romantic relationships.
Justin: Oh.
Haley Radke: We were in the Relationships Series way back in the day, which apparently you've listened to for years.
Justin: Yes.
Haley Radke: And then if you want to learn more about IFS, Dr. Richard Schwartz is the creator, and the website's ifs-institute.com. And go do your deep dive. I think it's fascinating. And, we, Justin and I, were just talking about how sometimes we can extend love and protection for someone we love but not necessarily to ourselves. And just a little brief into IFS is if we're looking at ourselves, at different parts that could be different ages, perhaps it's easier for us to extend compassion and love to our younger self, to picture yourself as a [00:34:00] child and to extend compassion that way. That's like a nice easy way in. It's not easy. But like a little bit of an in towards loving ourselves. So I can tell you've done a lot of different work in therapy. So I appreciate you bringing that to us and yeah, I encourage people to, I don't know, like we just can't do this on our own. I just don't think it's possible. And so I hope that you guys are finding supports and if that's adoptee friends or an adoptee- or adoption-competent therapist, or you are actually looking into healing in various ways, like I really hope you're able to do that. I don't usually do this, but I asked Justin before we started recording: "Do you have some words for when we're done?” because this was really hard stuff to talk about. So thank you. Thanks for opening that up and for being willing to share. Now, is there a place we can connect with you online? [00:35:00]
Justin: Yeah, the reason we laugh is, we talked about this before. I've made the decision, I have a very easily findable last name, and just mainly for protection for my parents, I'm choosing not to. But if you would like to connect with me, you can donate to the Patreon and be part of the Facebook group there. Which, again, I encourage anybody to do.
Haley Radke: Thank you. In fact, I discouraged him from saying that.
Justin: Yeah. That is true. That is true.
Haley Radke: But that's very kind of you. And I have found your wisdom through the years– you've been in there from, I think, when I started–to be so encouraging and helpful. So I hope people do find a way to connect with you. I'm sure they can find you other ways too, but that'll be the public way. And so thank you so much. I really appreciate you sharing your story with us. [00:36:00]
Justin: Thank you so much.
Haley Radke: No one ever accused us of not talking about the hard things. I feel so honored that Justin felt safe to share his story with us. When I think about my listeners and how much they've been through, sometimes I don't even know the extent, like, I just couldn't even possibly imagine the extent of things that are happening for you right now. So I'm thankful for real talk. I'm thankful for going there, even though it's hard to listen to, knowing that we're not alone. Perhaps you're listening and you think, Oh my gosh, I can't believe someone else went through the exact same thing I'm going through right now. So I hope you feel seen and [00:37:00] connected.
I also am just blown away by the amount of listeners who have been supporting the podcast. I couldn't do it without people like Justin, people like you supporting the show monthly. There are a lot of costs behind the scenes of making a podcast like this, helping it to sound very nice in your ears, helping it to be easy to understand, easy to find online. So we want to find more adoptees who have never heard of adoptees experiencing the ups and downs of reunion or the challenges of relationships with adoptive parents, or have never heard of an adoptee who's a therapist. What is that? We want to find those adoptees who are feeling lonely and not connected. And with your monthly support, the show can grow and find more and connect more adoptees together into community. So a giant thank you. [00:38:00]
If you want to join them, adopteeson.com/partner has the details of how you can sign up. I'm just so honored to have been able to share this story with you and thankful for those of you who support the show and let me have this as a job. Not in my wildest dreams could I imagine being an adoptee advocate full-time. So thank you.
And thank you for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.
