Hello, ladies and gentlemen.
It's great to be here in Cleveland, Ohio, or in Ohio.
And today I'm going to share a message of resilience and
redemption, a message of hope, a message that will hopefully
rejuvenate you.
How many of you parked out?
No, no red need your hands.
But a lot of you that I seek a lot for child welfare as Foster
Paris and Department of Social Services and such as a lot
of people that I meet at this time of the year is burnt out
time, and it's all right.
That tells me it's all right to be burnt out.
That tells me you are on fire at one point.
So I'm about to get to fire back.
And also a lot of you that became false apparent with social
workers that I found.
Don't try to get rich.
It's not something you chose like a get rich doing this.
I've met the most special people that are fought er person
social workers, and I realized they're not doing it for the
outcome. They're doing it for the outcome.
And I'm here to share with you the outcome of what is possible
from a great social worker and great, loving, committed foster
parents that were so dedicated to me growing up to becoming
the man I am.
See how I came in the story, how I came in this life is a
crazy story my mother won't tell to my face.
They to me, to my face all the issues that happened.
I met my mom, my biological mom at about 30, 31 years old,
and I had my case fit.
And in my case fall that says I was brutally abused by men
in her past.
Brutally abused prenatally that I had all these issues.
And so I contacted my biological mom after 25 years because
she never reached out to me.
She never visited me in foster care.
She never called me while I was in foster care.
She might write me a letter once a year or twice a year.
So I found her address, and I sent her a letter saying, Hey,
this is your son, Eric.
I need some questions to answer.
Send me your phone number.
I'll call you.
So she sends me her phone number.
I call her.
I realized that I don't want to talk to her over the phone.
I want to talk to her in the person because I want to see
your body language.
I want to see your eyes.
So I said, I want to see you.
So I flew to New Mexico.
She picked me up at the airport.
Now I I'm a little anxiety at this point because I don't
know this Lady.
All I remember is all the abuse and stuff, the bad stuff
that happens.
So I'm sitting in the car with her and she's talking to me
and she seems like a nice person, but I don't know.
And as we drive, she says, Derek, I am surprised for you.
And I'm like, Okay, maybe it's like baby pictures or something
like that.
And as we pull up to the house, we get out, we walk in the
door, and a bunch of people go, surprised.
And I'm like, Well, who are all these people?
She goes, Oh, each of your aunts and uncles and cousins,
your half brother, your grandparents just died last year.
And blah, blah, blah.
And I'm like, Wow.
And it was amazing.
It was like, my blood magnetized to their blood is like,
before, I epically, whatever you want to call it.
And it was like, Wow, I got another family here.
And then after about an hour, it done on me.
Well, where are you?
A bit for 25 years.
And then when they all left, I had all these wines that had
to be answered that I carried on my back.
Basically, why did you give me up?
Why did you abuse me?
Why did all these things?
And later on in life, I realized that the is never get completely
answered. And they pulled you back.
Those is who pulls you back.
And so when everybody left, it was on, like, Donkey Kong
with my mom.
Like, I wanted all these answers.
And she said to me, I'm not gonna answer any questions.
But look at you.
You can call me mom now.
And I'm like, You are not my mom.
My foster mom is my mom.
You gave up on me.
And she's crying, right?
And she starts running off.
I go, Fine, run.
And I am saying some choice words because I have a lot of
built uberies that Vincent anger and frustration, frustration
at her.
And she comes back and says, Derek was tough for me.
She was 30 years old at that point when she gave me, actually
35. At that point, I go, What up?
It was it for you.
You're the adult.
I was the kid.
And she starts crying and stuff, and I go, You know what?
I can't deal with the tears.
I was the kid.
And I said to her, It's just that I was brutally abused,
prenatally, brutally abused for the first few years of my
life by this man.
And blah, blah, blah.
She didn't want to talk about it.
And I said, I want the truth.
I want the truth.
I'm getting ready to have my own kid.
I don't know who I am.
And it she says, Ranger, in the records that you were sexually
abused by minding your path.
And she goes, Oh, no, we are not talking about that.
And then adonhomes voices.
And I spoken.
I said, Am I protected?
Rate.
She goes, Oh, no, we are not going to talk about that, Derek.
And I'm like, I want to know.
And she said, Derek, I'm not talking about that.
And I'm screaming at her.
And then she said, Fine, I'll tell you something, Yes, a
man forced himself, only I got Frank.
And when I told that man, I'm pregnant with your kid.
He said to me, Your father said to me, Well, you better go
get an abortion.
If you don't get abortion, I'll kill debate myself.
So a three months.
No abortion.
Six months.
No abortion.
Seven months pregnant.
You have a nice bump there.
And my mom is waitressing at a restaurant in San Diego, California,
doing her job waiting tables, and I'm enjoying myself.
Swine amniotes flu the warmth of my mother's mood.
I'm enjoying myself.
I don't know what's gonna happen that is.
Then my dad comes into the restaurant in a fit of rage, grabs
my mother by her long blonde hair in front of the restaurant,
drags her in a fit of rage back into the kitchen, throws
my mom to the ground, and Katie to stomp on her stomach over
and over again, kicking her, punching her.
I'm gonna kill this kid.
But you know what?
I lived.
And I tell people, thank you.
I tell people all over this world as a professional speaker,
speaking from the bottom of the Earth, Australia to the top
of the Earth, First Nations Territory and Northern Territory,
Canada to all different cultures.
And I tell them, as long as there's air in your lungs, as
long as there's a blood running through your veins, you have
a purpose.
And I received so many emails, so many Facebook messages,
Instagram messages that fake Ericom lost.
I'm lost.
I don't even know what's the meaning of life.
That's such a common question.
And I always flip it on them to give your life meaning.
You're here today because you have mean in your life or you're
looking for meaning in your life to be a foster parent.
Let me tell you who I am today because of the foster parent,
because of a foster mom and dad, because I was a great investment
in emotional investment.
And they invested in me so that I could become something
and they never wanted to limit my potential.
I asked my mom next, what happened?
She goes, Derek, he got arrested, went to prison when he
got out, I got back with him.
And I said, Why would you ever get back with this man?
And she said, Because, Derek, he was so good looking.
And I'm like, what?
And then I realized I wasn't dealing with a Lady that had
all her marbles in her head.
My mom and I said, Well, he beats you.
Well, Derek, that's what I thought.
Love, what?
That's the way my mom was treated in my grandma.
So she stayed with him for a couple of years while he brutalized
me. I have an older sister who's 10 years older than I from
a different date.
My mom and three years old when I was three, had enough courage
to run away.
That's a big deal.
To run away from abuses and relationship.
She ran away with both of us in to we don't have a car.
We don't have money.
We are living in a Park in Southern California.
We are homeless.
She finds a stroller with three wheels.
It was in a dumpster, three wheels.
And she's pushing the stroller with me.
And they're being for money.
And back in those days, she got two Bucks.
And for two Bucks, we went to McDonald's and had a Big Mac
deal and split it three ways.
And it was Christmas Day.
We didn't have anything.
My mom has a struggle, some stripes, basically with her sister,
my aunt, and she called her and said, Hey, we're homeless.
Can we come live with you?
And she goes, Well, I guess if you can make it down to our
house, you can live with us.
So we eventually find a way down to get down to the house.
We knock on the door.
My mom, I mean, my aunt says, Oh, so you made it.
Well, you can't live here.
You can live in our garage.
So we lived in this old yucky, one car garage for quite a
while. And my mom started communicating with my biological
dad again, the person she ran away from.
And my dad came to that garage and another fit of rage.
My dad's an alcoholic lunatic.
He comes in with a wine ball.
He throws the wine bottle to the ground.
It shattered.
He picks up a broken piece of the neck of the wine bottle.
And he comes after me, says, I'm gonna kill this kid.
I never wanted this kid.
I'm not paying child support.
And as he comes out for me, my mom tries to stop and he slices
her neck.
She has the scars.
To this day, my sister jumps in.
We're all screaming.
My aunt Here's his calls to police.
And that's the last time I ever seen my dad ever again.
I used to think that was one of the biggest curses in my
life. Why would my dad want to kill me?
Why would my dad not come back for me?
But it's interesting.
Later on, when you connected dots going backwards, you realize
that it's one of your greatest blessings that your father
never came back for you.
I asked my mom, well, what happened next?
And she said, we had to get a garage.
Derek, I had to find a guy that had money.
So she found a guy.
He had a nice yellow speedboat, a Bloom Camaro.
And he had a house and going from a garage, one car garage
to a house.
It's like going from a 25 inch standard definition TV to
a 65 inch, four K Ultra HD.
It was amazing.
I had my own room.
We moved in.
We relocated to the Bay Area of San Francisco, Northern Cal,
for San Francisco Bay Area.
And my mom marries this guy, and he pretends like he likes
me. My new stepdad until my mom gets pregnant with his kid.
Three kids, 3 different men.
And then he turns on me.
I have scars all over me from brutal cold.
And I want to share two pieces of abuse with you that changed
my life for many years into my adult life.
The first issue I had all the way till, like 9, 10 years
old was winning my bed.
And bad things happened in the dark and the bed anger.
All these bad things happened.
And I didn't like the toilet and I would cut and I would
be out of control.
And my stepdad would grab the back of my little head.
This kid right here, look at that cute kid.
I don't know what happened to me now, look, man, that was
cute, but he would take the back of mine had, and he would
hold a big clump of hair, and he would just bash me against
the walls.
And when he lost grip, this 200 pound power of the man would
start kicking me.
And I knew exactly where we were going because it happened
quite often.
He always wanted me in front of the toilet, and this coward
of a man would take the back of my little four year old five
year old head and shove my face to the bottom of the toilet
bowl. And back in those days, the toilet Bowl with water
was much higher and he would hold me down there, and all
I wanted to do is drink the air.
I didn't want to drink toward the water, and there's no way
that I can overpower him.
He's just with full force.
And it's one particular time he's holding my head down.
He's holding me down so long that I'm thinking that this
is it.
And all I want is my God given right over.
And my mom screaming, You're holding them down too long.
You're holding them down too long.
And he's screaming, I don't carries.
He's forcing me.
And then he brings me up and I breathe.
He pushes me back down and pushes my face down so hard again
to the toilet that hurts my nose so bad.
If you look at my nose, it's all crooked in there.
It's because of that.
I and he's holding me down.
And my mom's screaming, You're gonna count me.
You hold down too long.
And he doesn't care that my mom runs to me as I'm on the
toilet Bowl like this.
And she told me, Derek, I grabbed your wrist like this, and
she grabbed my wrist and she pulled my arm back so hard backwards
that it ripped my arm from my shoulder and it just hung there.
She never took me to the hospital, so it never healed, right?
She put me in a sling.
And I remember meeting my aunt, actually, at that little
family reunion.
One of the first things she said to me was, Do you ever remember
being in a sling growing up?
And I said, Yeah, for the white sling?
I don't remember the toilet.
And she says, I know they felt so bad.
And I said, No, they didn't.
They did it to me all the time.
But because she never took me to the hospital, never healed
trits. And only if I pointed out, this shoulder here is much
higher than this shoulder now, almost six foot 6.
And I like to move.
I like playing basketball and stuff, and it's not my boot
pan because I can't even stretch it out.
It just it's just a weird situation.
It's just stuck in there.
It's like my guys.
But that would explain why Polly hated toilet is for so long.
And early on in my marriage, my wife, so he got a clean toilet
like, Oh, heck, no angle toilet.
But for the foster parents out there and social workers,
toilet tourists were it triggered for me?
Cause toilets to me were a symbol of death.
So if you have a kid that doesn't want to use the toilet,
there's something going on.
Chances are if they come to your home.
And what my foster parents realize is, Derek, hold the species
until they're huge, bound ments.
Basically, I'm gonna be real with you.
And they realized that I wouldn't poop in the toilet, pop
in other places.
And then the toilet started to become my friend because my
foster parents realized, Oh, we're going to cure him.
We're gonna give them lots of fights.
And then you got to go to the toilet.
But I started to learn to use the toilets up.
The toilets were a symbol of death to me.
Now the next piece of abuse that changed my life forever
for many, many years, until my 30?
S was my favorite word was the F word.
This kid right here would say the F word all the time, not
fun and family.
They're really bad word.
And what do you think?
I learned that bad word from my own parents?
They used it all the time.
And so I would say this Fu to students who I was expelled
out of kindergarten for biting, punching, kicking the teachers,
the students I'm seeing to everyone.
And I'm in the front yard, and my mom says, Come inside,
clean up time for dinner.
And I'm playing with these long, dark, these big darks on
the lawn and you throw them up and they come down.
I'll never forget.
And she says, Come in, Derek.
And I'm mad that she's interrupting my game.
And I say that word to my mom in a very derogatory manner
towards her.
Because what you say and I send it again because you will
never say that and get to me ever again.
She pulls me inside and I'm thinking, I'm gonna get a hook.
Man is thinking, No, she pulls me up the stairs and I can't
even walk stairs, right?
And she's pulling me up the stairs and half way up the stairs,
I look down into the kitchen and living room, and I remember
seeing yellow cores, beer cans everywhere and I'm thinking,
Oh my gosh.
I'll never forget that image.
And as she pulls me up the stairs, she takes me to the bathroom.
She drove me in the bathroom.
She comes inside, closes the door, turns on the hot water
to the sink.
She proceeds to tell me how bad the kid I am, that I wish
I never had you, that you're like your dad.
You are the devil, Derek.
You are the devil.
And I'll never forget that with her saying that you are the
devil. And all I see is steam coming up from the sink, and
I have no idea what's gonna happen.
And then my mom does the unthinkable.
My mom grabs my left little hands and tries to hold it under
that hot water as I scream and scream, no, Mom, I'm sorry.
No, Mom, I'm sorry.
And I'm screaming and she told me by my wrist as it's just
Bernie. She finally let me go.
And I remember holding on to my hand and looking in the mirror
as I'm crying, looking in the mirror and seeing the reflection
is the most angriest person I've ever seen.
My mother, who's supposed to love me, who's supposed to guide
me, who's supposed to protect me?
Tell me how great I am.
Give me there.
There's.
Hold me.
Mine.
My mom snapped again.
She grabs my left hand.
She holds me under that water, which felt like an eternity
as I screamed for my life in which he finally let me go.
I'll never forget the image that I saw in the sink, all of
my part of my flesh and all of my skin in one big hump in
the sink.
And not only did she burn my hand, but she burned into my
heart, into my soul, into my spirit, into my mind, that I
was the bad kit, that I had no value.
She bandaged me up.
It took a while for this to heal, and when it didn't heal
her and my stepdad voted me up in the car we took arrive.
We ended up at this building.
We go inside and my mom and my stepdad are talking to a few
people, and then this guy comes to get me in.
Does Derek come with me?
My mom never said I love you.
My mom never said I'm coming back for you.
My mom never said, Derek, you need help.
I'll be back for you.
No, she lost.
She abandoned me at a psychiatric hospital when I was five
years old and she kept my brother and sister.
So growing up, I always knew I had a brother and sister try
and growing up and feeling like the biggest reject, knowing
that the good kids got to stay with Mom and the bad kid got
thrown away.
Because really, what am I?
I'm a reminder of a mistake to my stepdad and a reminder
of the mistake to my mom and I'm out of control.
I don't generally share what I'm about to share with you,
but I'm going to share at that psychiatric facility in California.
When you turn 18, you can get a copy of your foster care
juvenile records, social service records, but they wouldn't
give me mine.
My foster sister went in and got her file, but they wouldn't
release my files to me.
And I went to court in Oakland, California, and filed some
paperwork, and the judge turned me down.
And the supervisor for the County said, We never had anybody
turned down to get your posture care records.
That's your right.
So I filed an appeal, and I waited eight weeks, and I went
on an appeal.
And I'm going to share with you excerpts from my psychiatric
evaluation, my neurological evaluations.
I did brain scans in these machines, my speech and language
evaluations and my psychological exams.
And I'm going to just overwhelm you for a little bit.
But before I do that, I want to sing a song that I wrote
called Invincible.
I used to always feel invisible, being a kid in character
until one day, I realized that I was invincible.
Because when you look back, you connect the dots.
You're like, Wow, nobody can destroy me.
Nobody can destroy it.
So this song is called Invincible.
The music is like therapies in my soul.
Every time I write a song, it fits a little piece of my soul.
And when I write songs, generally is the journals of my life.
So this is one of my journals someone on show me that I'm
not in throw me away like an empty bottle of whiskey meant
to kill the tank I've been long I'm talking to the voices
in my head running from the shadow that scared me to desert?
But I'm in the hole and I'm trying to save my life I don't
know where I go?
I still the line I'm a been full I'm trying to save my life
don't know where I'm going to follow?
I'm still London?
Well, linings trying one more time I'm down for the count
again? Yeah, a lot of the gamble one big a fight you got
to get back up to win and some people will laugh at you would
tell you quit?
But I ain't going down better?
I will never give consent now where?
Move it.
I'm trying to save my life I don't know where I'm going so
far I'm still lying?
I'll been deep down knocked out, thrown the war of me to
talk on?
Nobody can away what's inside of me?
The roof?
My mind is wrong?
I'm like to the man when the battles on?
Nobody could stop me I'm gonna be everything I'm Missy?
Cause I'm intense and I'm trying to save my life?
I don't know where I'm going so far I'm doing all right.
Thank you.
So this kid lost, confused, wondering why he's at this hospital.
And then they do all these tests on these kids right now?
And they come up with all these diagnosis and the professional
spend hours and hours.
One professional spent 18 hours over several days with me
coming up with stuff.
So here we go.
Derek's background accuses extreme physical and economic
Popish ment during infancy.
And a father that brutalized.
Eric and his mother during the same period, dared father
was an alcoholic stepdad was an abused child that is known
to be very strict with children.
They're already given them an out right there.
That's a cop out.
I speak to so many organizations and one of the organizations
I spoke to with the Us Attorney General conference.
And these are all the Us attorneys throughout the United
States. And I said, This is my most controversial moment
of my keynote.
That's an ounce that's saying, Hey, he's had a rough flight,
too. No, it's a choice to beat your kid.
It's a choice to abuse your kid.
My dad probably my stepdad probably wouldn't put his hand
in the fire more than once.
He knows that a fetus or run in front of a moving car.
So I don't like that statement in competitive neuritic behavior.
Anybody know what that is with your hands up?
All right.
We got educated audience here.
Good thing you're not gonna use right now.
So for those who don't know, in competit is your feces endured
as your urine.
And when you go through a lot of abuse, I was a fighter.
I came in this world like a fighter.
So I'm gonna fight back.
There's no way that I can win it against an adult.
So I would choose another message, which is using my urine
and my species.
And so I would poop on your bed.
Smear it all over your bed.
Smear it under your bed.
Poop in the closet.
Smear it all over your clothes.
Pee and jewelry, box, pee and purses.
Poop in anything I wanted to.
And it would follow me into my foster homes.
Now I'm cured.
It's not like if my wife makes me Matt, I gotta go poop in
her first.
But my foster mom will tell you to this day, she would go
make her payments at Bourbons and Montgomery Wards and her
little credit card payments, right?
She would go to the counter.
And when she got the encounter, she opened up her person,
grab her checkbook.
And this time, when she opened up her person to counter,
there was a nice gift from me sitting right at the top.
And I would say, or you need me that.
So, I mean, she had to deal with a lot of my foster mom foster
parents expelled from kindergarten because of severe behavioral
issues. Father is an institution for the criminally insane.
My dad is a Fulsome State prison inmate number 5-8-5-2-0
for a string of armed robbers from Arizona to California.
The closest I've been to my dad is a piece of paper.
I have to this day where he signed off his rights to the
state of California.
I used to look at that paper hating it.
Now I look at that paper with love.
Thank you for never coming back for me.
Mother and stepfather do do not want to go to therapy is
declined. Are classes.
They feel aspheric problem and not be.
Holy cow.
I wish I had known this as a teenager because I had a lot
of misplaced anger in the foster care, anger towards my foster
parents, anger towards a judge, anger towards mentors, anger
towards teachers, social workers, child welfare workers.
Because I didn't want to connect with anybody.
I'm not interested in connecting.
I got a mom and dad.
I'm going to be going home.
The average time and fall foster care is approximately 15
months. I'm a lifer they call it.
And so I'm thinking that I'm gonna go home one day.
I'm going home.
I see other foster kids get visits from their parents.
So I'm thinking eventually I'm gonna go home.
Well, I never did go home.
But if I had built this statement early on, I probably would
have built some connections and trusted more and actually
been a nicer person.
Mother's personal background consists of extreme brutalization
by men in her past.
And so it was with her mom and so on.
And so it will be with my sister head banking and severe
temper tantrum.
My false parents will tell you I was able to turn off pain.
When you go through lots of use, you.
You have this mechanism somehow that you can activate and
you turn off pain.
And so I would bang my head so much until it's split open.
And I didn't even know it split open until there's blood
everywhere. I would bang it on the corners.
I bang it on concrete.
So I have scars all over my head from that.
It's very tiny.
Gross motor Proms do no abuse.
So at six years old, I cannot run.
At six years old, my little three year old can run up and
down the stairs.
I been kept in closet a lot.
I never developed a skill to run.
I cannot walk up and downstairs.
That was a big problem at one of my foster ones because they
had stairs.
I couldn't time myself at six years old to walk downstairs
so I would fall.
So my outer pairs figured out, well, we're going to work
on this small and large motor skill issues.
We're going to put them in soccer.
And so they put they immersed me in a running sport.
And I thought it soccer.
But eventually, within a year, year and a half, I started
to run better and breath better.
And now I can move, dance and do all that stuff.
But I was at delayed just in running and walking stairs.
A class for severely emotionally disturbed children that
minor must be supervised closely at all times.
Derek is hyperactive and emotionally disturbed.
I'm still hyperactivity see is wires, its nature and nurture.
I tell people that have ADHD and better Anton and high test
and says, I know you have a special little energy there.
There's nothing wrong with that.
It's all right to be different.
I mean, I have a friend that has Major AHD, Major OCD.
And he'll call me, like, three times, 4 times a day going,
What's up, Terry?
How are you doing?
It's Anna.
And I love his energy.
And he makes half a million dollars a year.
Lives in Orange County, California, and he sells software.
Yeah, Let's give him piped up and they just want to buy.
I don't know, but I talked to his mom.
I met his mom, and I talked to how you go?
Well, USS Awesome energy shoes.
Yeah.
We just learned to channel that energy in a certain direction
and not point.
Keep them down to use that special energy for potential use.
It for something great.
Derek is unable to get along with anyone.
There is indication that the boy might be overtly psychotic.
The child as that's inappropriately and shows much anxiety.
I still have inappropriately.
I call it spontaneous immaturity.
Let me give an example.
So I fly in and out of the country.
And sometimes when you fly in the country customs line, you
can't use your cell phone since an hour.
Wait, and I'm just bored.
I see everybody looking like zombies because they're it wiped
out from coming back to wherever.
And once in a while I look around and I'll just go right.
Like there's a loose Decock or Pterodactyl or something in
in the customers, and people are like.
And I just laugh.
I'll never see him again, but I still laugh it appropriately,
right? The boy asked out against anyone around him.
Derek talks frequently about guns, knives, and hurting others.
School placement should be an educationally handicapped program,
has a fascination with knives and hurting others.
My foster parents will tell you that if you made me mad,
I didn't poop on your stuff or pee on your stuff, that I
would try to get.
It nice.
And when I got mad, they would say, Get the knife, cause
the knife, the butter knives, everything.
Get the knives.
And if I couldn't get it knife, I would say, I'm gonna stick
you. One of these days, I might get you.
And so when my foster parents weren't looking, I would stick
them with my fingers, and it always freaked him out.
It always scared him, but they never put locks on their bedroom
door because they realized that we're gonna move beyond this
behavior. This isn't Derek.
This is an angry little boy.
That's what's happening right here.
And so must be physically and physically restrained because
he flies in the races and is completely unmanageable.
And that would happen to about 17 years old being restrained.
I hated that Terris exhibited much fantasy and delusional
behavior. Darren, do not get along with anyone he is the
terror of the neighborhood.
It actually States that in my record the terror of the neighborhood.
And then I became a terror of other neighborhoods because
I was vague into vandalism.
If I didn't pop on your stuff and pee on your stuff and try
to stab them, I would be angry and I would walk out the front
door, find bricks, and throw it at your car, or find rocks,
and throw it at your car.
And so I became a terror of other neighborhoods are never
had any positive modeling figure, yet I chose UAL confusion.
So at six years old, I don't even know what a boy and a girl
are. I don't even know the volcano.
I don't know the term.
I don't know what a dog and a cat are.
When Teric expresses his zip pulses is usually in terms of
moral aggression, aggression in general, death or set.
I have thoughts of murdering my mother, and then I went from
murdering my mother to murdering other people.
Hi severe, emotionally disturbed state of mind interferes
with his overall functioning.
By the time Derek was a year old, he had pretty much what's
wrong from reality.
That's a pretty bold statement from somebody interviewing
me at five years old and saying, Hey, he's been out of it
since he was one, like they're already setting me up right
now, right?
Darren does not know his ABCs.
My three year old can go a through Z pronounce him identifies
him in a book I cannot count, attempt my three year old count
20 and then you coach to 21 that he knows what to do until
29 and you coach him again.
My vocabulary is very limited.
I have approximately 60 word vocabulary is six years old,
which is way, way below standard, and it's mainly cuss words
and bad, nasty terms.
Brutal scale indicates below Avex general knowledge, logical
thinking and language development.
Derek has erratic psychosis.
He loses contact with reality frequently without Borney.
He is not adoptable based on the various Derek's emotional
problems. I'm here to tell you that every child I adoptable
everywhere I've been all over and I've seen spoken at foster
care conference, adopted conferences about the parent conferences,
and I'll see him and they've adopted special needs kids,
muscular dystrophy and all this stuff in their wheelchairs
and their parents abandoned.
But they're saying I am not adoptable.
The only time you turn your back on childhood.
The only time you turn your back on the child is for them
to hop on for a horse ride or something like that.
That's the only time.
Thank you.
So they're already kind of turning their back on me.
If an adequate poster.
This is a crazy statement here.
If an adequate poster one cannot be found, Derek will be
sent to the psychiatric institution at six years old.
The psychiatric hospital they're going to send me in Northern
California is Napa State Hospital, which is a very famous
psychiatric hospital in California.
So it takes a special foster parent to take high level little
kid like me.
Neuropsychological tests indicate Derek's function M a two
year old level and has intellectual disabilities.
I put in intellectual disabilities because I hated what they
said. They said that I was mentally art.
I don't even like the artwork, but in both my neurological
and psychiatric evaluation that I was mentally are.
And that's how I can prepackaged plus attachment issues and
all these other things.
And that's how I came prepackaged and labeled into the system.
Now I went through a series of foster homes.
They didn't want me.
They're supposed to take high level little kids like me,
and they couldn't handle me.
And I back at the shelter, never cottages called.
And I have this social work.
Her name is Sharon, and she's a cute blonde, and she's driving
this cream sports car.
And she takes me to the Oakland Zoo.
She takes me to get ice cream and stuff.
And I always say, Cheryl, Cheryl, I always look forward to
seeing her.
And I would say, Cheryl, I'm gonna marry you one day.
And she goes, Oh, dammit.
She never said no.
So I love Cheryl.
And I always enjoyed just being around her.
And as an adult, I got my conversation.
I got the files and in the files, it's all the conversation
content, social workers and judges, Charl, welfare.
All of them are writing about you, right?
And I have a copy of all of Cheryl's records that she wrote
about me, and I wrote it, and I read it as an adult.
I knew Cheryl loves me, but as an adult, I reread it.
And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, she really fought for me to get
a home.
It's awesome.
And so Cheryl didn't have any more foster homes for me in
the counter.
So she decides to call this family other.
They were foster parents, but they were not looking to be
foster parents anymore.
They were actually looking to adopt, and they had looked
at three little boys, and now they were making their choice.
And she called him up and says, Hey, I know you're not fostering
right now, but I got this cute kid, but the big personality
she's trying to tell me, but she's like saying, Hey, Dad
in prison.
His mom's not coming back for him.
He's not adoptable, but you could probably keep him long
term. And you know what they said?
They said, You know what, Derek?
I mean, Cheryl, can we try enough for a weekend?
Friday through Sunday?
Now there's more to the story that I'm about to share with
you, that I haven't written any of my seven books.
And normally I don't even share this story, but I feel like
convicted right now to share it with you.
And this is such a small audience.
I can almost look at every one of you and your homes, and
I'm going to share this story.
This Lady woke up in the middle of the night and heard something
and she woke up.
She said it was like two in the morning, and she noticed
this kid sitting on the end of her bed with his back against
her short blonde hair.
And she was frightened.
She was like, What are you doing in the shops?
Who are you?
And the kid isn't doing anything.
And she's trying to wake up her husband and the husband won't
wake up.
And the kid turns around and just stares the trip and she
says, Where do you live?
Why are you here?
And the boy doesn't say anything to her.
The boy just stared at her for quite a while, and then the
boy was gone.
Two weeks later, I pop up at that doorstep with Cheryl.
We knock on the door.
They opened up the door, my new foster mom and dad.
And when they open up the door, the mom's like, Oh, my gosh.
He pushes a foster, pushes the dad and says, Oh my gosh,
that's that little boy.
That's the little point that was on my pin.
This is the little point.
And when I knocked on that door, I had a lot of anxiety.
I'll never forget.
Where am I going to sleep?
Do I have a pillow?
I don't have a toothbrush.
Where does it work?
Where am I gonna see the bar people?
What if I slip in someone else's spot?
What if I don't like there at food?
Do I have to share a room with anybody?
I'm afraid of the torque?
Will they let me sleep with the light on?
So I have a big entity and they're so excited to see me.
And then the back goes, Hi, Derek.
Hi, Derek.
How are you?
Brings down the mom are just looking at me, and I go, How
do you know my name?
How do you know my name?
And I start going, How do you know my name?
Yeah.
My name's Derek.
How do you know my name?
And I'm stuck on that.
How do you know my name?
And he goes, Who?
You have a little attitude, don't you run around?
Don't you run around?
And I'm like, run.
He goes, Yeah, I have so much energy right now.
Just run.
I go off, run.
I'll run away, go, run.
So I run off the driveway.
And he goes, Can you run?
And I run off the driveway onto a ter Pat and I'm running.
And all of a sudden I see horses coming up to the fence and
I see these big animals.
They were like dinosaurs to me.
And I'm looking at him.
And I'm like, I've never seen a horse before.
And I start walking and I walk to a barn.
And inside that barn or a bunch of rabbits and rabbit punches
behind the Barner, goats, pigs, dog and a cat, all this stuff.
And then the King tries the granddaddy tries for a kid, a
bunch of chickens and a chicken hunch, a chicken coop, a
ton of chicken.
And that whole weekend, you found me in one place.
I didn't want to talk to any other human beings.
If my own parents got rid of me, who could I trust?
Really?
But I would be in that chicken coop.
And I would walk in.
This kid would walk in and the chickens would scatter.
And I would, well, I try.
I'm trying to catch a bird.
I'm just trying to just hold it.
And they just were scared of me.
And my favorite animal was the bird because birds were a
symbol of freedom.
Birds were a symbol of get my wings and fly away from the
junk in my life.
Freedom.
And I remember there was this one bird, and she wasn't scared
me. And I just stopped.
And she's doing her little chicken dance.
And she's like, ground, right?
Doing her little chicken dance.
And she's not scared.
I sit like, But on the ground and were like, I'd eye, basically.
And I started talking to this chicken.
And I love chicken so much.
I named her Wilder.
I loved Wilber with all of my heart.
That whole weekend, it was me and Will, my best buck.
And at the end of that weekend, Cheryl, my social worker,
comes to pick me up and take me back to the shelter.
And I told her, the biggest temper tantrum on that driveway,
screaming cussing out of control.
And my false mom said, Derek, we don't Act like that.
Here, stand up.
We don't Act like that bear.
And I stand up because what is it that you want?
And I turned.
The show goes, E.
Sheryl they don't even want me.
My foster mom and foster dad walked over to Cheryl.
I said, Can we try it out for a week?
And Cheryl was so happy because there was no other place
for me.
And so that whole week I loved it.
And at the end of the week, I did it with time double.
I had my black plastic bag full of my little cost, and I'm
waiting in my room.
And my foster mom says, Come downstairs into my room.
This is Derek.
I have a surprise for you.
And I said, Do I get to take Wilbur with me?
She goes, No, you get to stay here a month.
And a month turned into a year and a year turned into years.
They are my mom and dad.
They never gave up on me.
They never changed the locks on the front door.
When I was a crazy teenager.
They did it for their own biological kids.
But my foster mom will tell you, as he said, I could never
give up on you, Derek, even though I wanted you so much.
But I believe God sent you to me.
And I felt like if I ever give up on you, I'm giving up on
God they were a nice Christian family.
So I put them through so much.
What they realized that nine and 10 years old was that I
wasn't at most of these things.
I was just an angry kid.
And rightfully so.
How do you want me to come into the foster care system?
How do I thank you so much for rescuing me?
No.
I was conditioned.
What was love to me?
Beating me, abusing me.
That's what love was.
And I know it's kind of crazy to think, but I was never given
love the way you probably were given as a child or something
like that.
I was not giving the proper love.
I was abused.
So that's what I thought love was.
So I remember telling my most turns who did something.
You're going to hit me now you're going to burn me out and
they go, No, Terry, but not well, you need to.
You need to burn me.
And so that was my mentality.
That's what I thought.
Love boat.
Well, then I'll pay a 10 and on him something else.
I'll repent with you right now, but hurt me.
And so what they realized is 9, 10 years old was that I was
just an angry kidney.
And I got through psychiatric counseling twice a week from
five to 13.
And so they were part of that.
They would take me out of the school twice a week, go to
the County building, do my psychiatric session, and then
come back.
And what they realized was that I was a smart kid.
I learned to read and write at nine and 10 years old.
It's just that nobody ever, ever invested me.
I was a sponge.
And they realized that had some anger issues.
And so they decided to change my life.
But so they made some rules for me beyond the normal rules.
So number one was no video games.
When everybody had Nintendo, Sega Genesis and all this stuff,
Derek was not allowed to play video games.
Number two, TV was only one hour a week.
The National average is three to 5 hours a day.
Plus video games.
Plus I staring at the ipad or the iphone or whatever.
So TV one hour a week.
And if I got in trouble, that one hour was always gone.
Number three, No sugar cereals.
Sugar cereal was once a month.
We eat a lot of eggs to make in on this farm and stuff.
But sugar.
Sarah was once a month where my mother would boil wheat like
wheat until the crack open, not cream of weak.
It's called crack wheat.
And then she would strain it, put it in a Bowl, put a little
sugar and cinnamon on it.
And that was your sugar cereal right there.
And it tasted like cardboard.
I would always eat off the top layer and go, Mom, I need
more sugar.
I need more sugar in.
So you should see me when I became a Bachelor on my own.
After I moved out, what were the first couple things I did?
You should see my kitchen.
I can see my kitchen happen full of every kind of sugar,
still sugar cereal.
And then I became a video head junk video game junky for
a little bit, because I'm like, I got to just reel.
Well, that's great rebellion, right?
I didn't do drugs, and I rebelled doing sugar cereal.
And the other thing that the tile was Derek, there's not
drink, no sodas, except maybe on someone's birthday, you
could have a soda, no fast food.
Except maybe twice a year down Highway five to Disneyland,
where there's a bunch of McDonalds we could stop to McDonalds,
so no fast food.
And they said there is a creative outlet to start working
with his anger.
So they put me on an instrument called the Clarinet at 10
years old, the clarinet, this black licorice stick, I call
it, and I would have to practice that clear end.
I would have to wake up.
It almost took 5 45 or so.
Start practicing the clarinet at six o'clock in the morning
from six to 7.
Practice a clarinet from seven to 7 30.
Sit down with my dad at the piano and work on accompaniment
and memorization.
And then another half an hour after school, that's two hours
a day was band lessons, private lessons, symphonic lessons.
By the time I was 12 years old, I was what they considered
at boogy clarinet player in California.
I was at 12 years old.
I was playing at University in colleges, competing against
University students and winning command performances, where
I have eight to 10 page concertos memorized.
I would play Flight of the Bumblebee is 12 years old, just
real fast.
All that stuff.
I mean, very, very hard song, especially for a 12 year old
on the clarinet.
And the clarinet became my best friend.
And I love the clarinet because it was madness.
I perform.
People clap.
People do encores.
People love me.
They want more.
So the clarinet was my friend.
Now we'll go into my store in a little bit.