‘Long Lost Family’ Exclusive Sneak Peek: Greg Searches for His Birth Mother After Adoptive Mom Also Left

After being abandoned by his adoptive mother 50 years ago, Greg is looking to make a connection with his birth mother and heal some of the pain that came from his childhood with the help of Long Lost Family‘s Lisa Joyner. Ahead of Friday’s all-new episode of the hit TLC reality show, kicking off at 10 p.m. ET, PopCulture.com has a sneak peek of Greg’s emotional story.

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1968, Greg was placed for adoption by his birth mother, then adopted by a couple who couldn’t have children biologically. Joining sister Kathleen, whom they had adopted a year prior, the family lived an idyllic life on the beaches of Hawaii until Greg was in elementary school.

“I’m very close to my sister, Kathleen. We grew up together, and we were always very close,” he recalls in the PopCulture.com exclusive clip. “I didn’t have any negative association with being adopted probably until I was around eight or nine years old when my parents divorced and my mother moved out.”

Despite his father’s best efforts, things got tougher for Greg and Kathleen as they were left on their own more and more.

“My dad did his best to raise my sister and I, but there wasn’t a lot of parenting because he had to work full-time,” Greg admits. “It was very taxing.”

Having both his birth mother and adoptive mother out of his life was also taking a toll on Greg emotionally, contributing to a sense of abandonment that lasted into his adult life.

“Growing up without a mother, it’s something that I didn’t reflect on for a long time in my life so that it wouldn’t affect me,” Greg reflects. “I shut it out. Kathleen was one of the only people I talked to about being adopted.”

Things got more complicated when Kathleen began searching for her birth mother at age 18, eventually finding not just her birth mother but an entire family.

“So I watched from the sidelines, and I couldn’t process the concept of meeting my birth parents or finding them,” he adds. “Even when my sister did it successfully, I was suppressing so much that it didn’t resonate with me that it was possible for me.”

Now that he’s working on healing some of those past wounds, Greg needs Joyner’s help to see if he can find his birth family and learn more about his roots.

Can Joyner track down Greg’s birth mother to help him begin to heal? Don’t miss the rest of Greg’s story on Long Lost Family airing Friday at 10 p.m. ET on TLC.

Photo credit: TLC