Today, I caught myself slipping back into “T.J.” mode. After all these years, after rebuilding my life as Derrick Solano, that version of myself—the one I never wanted to be—still lingers, like a shadow I can’t shake. I was just standing there, absentmindedly checking my reflection in the bathroom mirror, and suddenly, there he was. That look in my eyes, that vacant stare, that old instinct to shut down, to blend in, to disappear if necessary. It’s funny how the past finds ways to slip back in, no matter how far we think we’ve come, no matter how hard we try to forget.
To most people who know me today, I’m Derrick Solano. They know pieces of my story—maybe a bit about my son Caleb, the years-long fight to keep him, the pain of having him torn from my life. But Caleb’s story is just one piece of a bigger, darker picture. Losing him was another scar, another notch on the belt of survival, but my story of loss didn’t begin with Caleb. It began long before that. It began with a broken system, a family I didn’t choose, and a name that wasn’t mine. It began with “T.J.”
The Richins household was supposed to be my safe place, the family that would finally make me feel like I belonged. At least, that’s what they told me. By the time I ended up there, I had already known loss in ways no kid should ever have to understand. My mother had handed me over when I was barely old enough to talk, and my siblings—John and Tasha—were the last constants I had. But like everything else in my life, they were taken from me, too, scattered to different foster homes, just faces I’d see less and less of until they became distant memories. I was a kid, barely hanging on to the scraps of family and identity I’d managed to cling to.
Then came the Richins. They said I could be their son, that they’d give me the life I’d always wanted. And for a while, I almost believed them. But they didn’t want “Joe,” the boy who had blue eyes and a past he couldn’t forget. They didn’t even want “Joseph.” They wanted “T.J.”—the son they could mold, a blank slate to fill in with their own story. They took me to court, stripped away my birth name, and rechristened me “Terrill Joseph Richins,” after Terry, the father in this “forever family.” They made me T.J., and that’s when the erasing began.
I was too young to understand it then, but looking back, I can see it clearly. They weren’t adopting a son; they were rewriting me. They weren’t interested in the kid who had seen too much too soon, who carried scars from a life they didn’t want to acknowledge. They wanted a kid they could start fresh with, as if every piece of who I’d been was something to scrub away. And for years, that’s exactly what I tried to do.
At first, I thought that if I became T.J., maybe they’d love me. Maybe they’d accept me. I buried “Joe,” buried my past, buried the memories of my mother, John, Tasha. I became quiet, obedient, invisible. Teresa was cold and calculating, the kind of person who could switch on the charm in public but was quick to remind me of my “place” in private. Every time I showed a glimpse of who I really was, every time I slipped, she’d be there to reel me back in, to remind me that I was here because they allowed it, that I was theirs to shape and control.
It didn’t take long for me to figure out that “forever family” meant playing the part they’d given me, no questions asked. I learned to silence my thoughts, to hide every part of myself that didn’t fit. I kept my head down, my mouth shut, and I tried to convince myself that maybe, if I was perfect enough, if I was the son they wanted, the pain would finally go away.
But the pain never goes away. Trauma doesn’t just disappear because you put on a new mask. It lingers, festers, claws its way to the surface, no matter how hard you try to bury it. I became so good at being T.J. that I almost convinced myself that’s who I was. I’d go through the motions, keep my head down, make myself as small as possible, just trying to survive without drawing attention.
But at night, when the house was quiet, the memories would come back. I’d lie there in bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to remember my siblings’ faces, the sound of my mother’s voice, the way life felt before everything shattered. Those memories were all I had, and yet every day, they slipped further away. And with every day that passed, “Joe” faded a little more, replaced by the hollow shell of “T.J.”
Years passed, and I became a master at blending in. T.J. was all the Richins saw, all they cared to see. And the rest? It was buried, locked away, so deep even I struggled to reach it. But the thing about ghosts is, they never stay gone. They’re always there, lingering, waiting for a moment to break free.
Standing in front of the mirror today, I caught a glimpse of him—of T.J., of the kid I’d been forced to become, the kid who’d learned that love was conditional, that survival meant silence, that being seen was dangerous. And no matter how hard I’ve tried to escape him, he’s still there, woven into every piece of me.
Today, I’m Derrick Solano. I chose that name, reclaimed that identity, rebuilt a life that feels like mine. But T.J. is still part of me, a reminder of the years I spent trying to be someone else, of the life I lost, the self I buried. He’s the part of me that shuts down when things get too hard, that questions my worth, that feels like I don’t deserve to take up space. He’s the part of me that still wonders if love is something earned, something conditional, something you can lose in an instant.
Losing Caleb, years later, was like reliving that old pain all over again. But losing Caleb wasn’t the start of my story—it was another chapter in a book that began with abandonment, betrayal, and a system that tried to erase me. This story, my story, is bigger than any one piece of loss. It’s a lifetime of learning to survive, of finding strength in the darkest places, of reclaiming every piece of myself that was taken, erased, rewritten.
Today, I’m Derrick, but T.J. will always be there, a ghost of the boy who learned to survive by disappearing. And while Caleb’s absence is a scar I’ll carry forever, it’s just one of many. My story didn’t begin or end with him—it’s a story of resilience, of fighting to be whole, of refusing to let the past define me. And every time I look in the mirror, I see both Derrick and T.J., two sides of the same journey, two pieces of a life that’s far from over.
This isn’t just about losing Caleb. It’s about a lifetime of being lost, of fighting to reclaim the parts of myself that were taken, the parts I thought I’d never see again. It’s about survival. It’s about resilience. And it’s far from finished.
