By B.K. Jackson

Until recently, most people likely haven’t encountered someone who’s been knocked off balance by a DNA test result, so it’s understandable they might not appreciate the magnitude of the impact. But it’s just a matter of time. Mind-blowing DNA revelations are becoming so common that some DNA testing companies have trained their customer service staff representatives to respond empathetically. While those employees may know the right thing to say, here in the real world the people around us often haven’t got a clue how it feels — like a punch to the gut.

If you’ve become untethered from your genetic family, you might get a second surprise: some of your friends and loved ones may be remarkably unsympathetic, often infuriatingly judgmental, and sometimes even hostile. It’s clear that although DNA surprises have become ubiquitous, social attitudes haven’t kept pace, and a stigma remains.

When you’re in a free fall and looking for something to grab hold of, negative reactions can set you spinning off your axis.

It shouldn’t be surprising that people may not know what to say to someone who’s received shocking DNA results. After all, few know how to comfort someone who’s experienced the death of a loved one, even though grief is a universal experience.

If your world has been rocked by a DNA surprise, let those around you know what helps and what doesn’t. And if you haven’t been so affected but want to help and support someone who has, it’s worth trying to put yourself in their place and imagine what the experience has been like. Or better yet, simply ask. But think twice before adding to their distress with one of these unhelpful yet commonly heard responses.

This well-meant platitude isn’t comforting to those who didn’t feel loved and nurtured by the dads who raised them. It’s like pressing a bruise. They wonder whether their biological fathers would have given them the love their dads didn’t or if the dads who raised them loved them less because they weren’t true progeny. And those of us lucky enough to have had precious relationships with our dads don’t need that reassurance. It’s like telling the bereaved their loved ones are in a better place. It’s what people say when they don’t know what to say. It doesn’t soothe our roiling emotions or patch the holes in our origin stories.A more cynical take on the same idea, this attempts to make light of those roiling emotions. If we were lucky, we know our dads are the men who loved us, bandaged our knees, held us, worried about us, sacrificed for us. Our love for them and theirs for us is ineffable, immutable, inseverable. But it doesn’t make us any less curious about the men whose not insignificant sperm gave us life and gifted us with half our genetic makeup.This tries to mollify us and discount our feelings at the same time. Blood is exactly what makes family, consanguinity being the first definition of kinship. Certainly there are also families of affinity, but the familial love we feel for them doesn’t alter the fact that our blood relatives exist and they matter to us.Of course we’re the same people! And yet we’re not. We may feel diminished, less of who we thought we were, or, if we always knew deep down something was amiss, more at ease, more authentically ourselves. All the cells in our bodies are different than we thought they were. Each contains the DNA of someone unexpected that encoded the traits that are the foundation of who we are.No, we can’t. But missing is akin to longing. We can wonder what we missed and long for what never was. “What you don’t know can’t hurt you” — the flip side of this comment — is equally untrue. It’s precisely what we don’t know that does hurt us. We don’t know where we came from, what genetic landmines could detonate our health, or the biological relatives who may be out there, somewhere, not even realizing we exist.Letting loose the family skeletons tends to be frowned upon. But just as grief is too heavy to be carried alone, keeping secrets is a lingering burden that feeds isolation and loneliness. It’s a comment that whispers, “You’re a dirty little secret.” It’s not our shame, but it is our truth to tell. As Anne Lamott famously wrote in “Bird by Bird,” “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”Wonder and longing often fuel a desire for reunion with biological relatives, which may be perceived as an affront by our families or as a threat by biological relatives who fear the shame exposure of their long-kept secrets would arouse. Discouraging a search for biological family sends the message that our need to know fundamental truths is insignificant compared to others’ needs to protect their secrets.That millions take DNA tests to see where they come from and millions more trace their lineage seems evidence enough that knowing about one’s pedigree matters. But tracing a family tree isn’t an option for NPEs (non-parental events or not parent expected) who can’t establish filiation, nor is protecting themselves against collateral damage — invisible health risks. For example, I worried my whole life about birth defects, cancers, and other genetic diseases that were the legacy of my Russian ancestors. Fortunately, I discovered I descend from robust Sicilians who lived long, healthy lives. Not so lucky is the ticking time bomb of a 40-year old NPE who doesn’t know he has a father and four half-brothers who all died of heart disease before 45. We simply want the same knowledge everyone else has.Having a good life doesn’t make us immune to despair, confusion, or grief. Ask anyone who’s lost a parent. Comments such as these disregard the sense of dislocation we feel after having been unceremoniously severed from our family trees. And lack of ceremony is key, because when something is lost, even if it’s something we didn’t know we had, there’s grieving to be done, whether the unknown father is dead or yet living. But there are no ceremonies, rituals, or social supports for this particular bereavement.We likely won’t get over it unless we’re able to grieve our losses and gain answers to the questions that others never have to ask about the things they take for granted — knowledge that is their birthright, but, they believe, not ours.Understand it’s complicated. The issues and feelings a DNA surprise give rise to are numerous and diverse. The most meaningful thing you can do is listen and acknowledge the feelings, but withhold judgment. Sometimes a willing ear and kind silence is the best response. Consider how you might feel if you learned you’ve been a secret for decades and what it’s like to see your family tree pruned by half. Erase everything you know about your father: his name, appearance, forebears, and medical history. Erase everything you share with him: his surname, religion, ethnicity. If you didn’t know all this, would you still be who you are? Would you not feel stripped bare and dispossessed? As Michael Crichton wrote in “Timeline,” “If you didn’t know history, you didn’t know anything. You were a leaf that didn’t know it was part of a tree.”Return to our home page to see more articles about NPEs. And if you’re an NPE, adoptee, donor-conceived individual, helping professional or genetic genealogist, join Severance’s private facebook group.BEFORE YOU GO…

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By Liz DeBettaMy body remembers

the shiver of separation

the moment of release

from anything and everything I ever knew

My body remembers

the renunciation

the retraction

the ricochet

of loss

Pain becomes an echo of that loss

that thunders through my skull

screaming

Forcing me to remember what my body refuses to forgetTrauma lives in the body. When you don’t have words to remember, your body will store those memories in fascinating and complex ways. Being an adopted person means living with an overwhelming storehouse of anxiety and confusion that comes from being separated from the mother who carried you in her womb. The only safe place you ever knew is gone, and your baby brain learns to operate on hyper alert, constantly on the lookout for danger. Or, as I like to call it, always waiting for the other shoe to drop (or the shit to hit the fan). Suddenly you are untethered and adrift in a new world with strange sounds and sights and smells that don’t make sense except that you don’t yet have words for it so all of that fear gets locked inside and becomes a constant companion. I have lived with so much fear, so much anxiety, and so much confusion that it’s exhausting. I’d love to sleep, to really and truly sleep, but that is difficult because my body remembers and my brain won’t relax.Breathe

Relax

It’s not real, it’s only a dream

But it feels real and I can’t separate from the feelings that bubble up while I sleep

I want sleep to be an oblivion

A place where I can just relax and breathe

A place where I can take a break from myself

Instead I sweat, cry, search —

for something

or someone

I never find

An endless pattern of up, down, into, through —

stairways

elevators

escalators

hallways

rooms

Desperately searching

Knowing that if I can find it

or you

I will be OK

I want to be OK

to breathe

to relax

to let go

So that when I wake up

I can be here

instead of stuck there

where I can’t find you

frantically wandering on the edge of panic

on the edge of despair

where reality is blurred by the darkness that still seems to threaten me

I have a recurring dream that is a manifestation of my fear and anxiety. It’s been happening for twenty years and it always makes me feel drained, panicked, and powerless. I wake up full of raw emotion, vulnerable and scared even though you are right next to me. Even though you are here and I am not alone. Every time it happens I’m less able to focus, less able to feel capable, less able to be present with you or anyone else. I have to struggle to find enough balance between what I know to be real and what, even though it feels so real, is only a dream. This recurrence is a reminder of how deeply embedded my fear of loss and separation is, a reminder of my terrified baby self who didn’t understand what had happened or why it was happening. This recurrence is what keeps me stuck in those preverbal memories that have such a strong hold on my inability to open up and express my feelings. How can I find the words to say how terrified I feel at the thought of losing you, or anyone I love? That losing you in the dream feels worse than death. It feels like I’m drowning in my own panic and I can’t stop moving because if I keep moving I might keep some of the panic at bay. If I keep moving I might get closer to finding you and then I can rest. So I spend most of my time waking and sleeping in a kind of constant motion to make myself feel safe. But I am safe and unsafe at the same time in this pattern and this constant tension creates a cage that I long to break free from. I have to fight my way back to feeling ok again in the aftermath of the dream because it haunts me and clings like a dark shadow refusing to let go. It makes me feel too much like I’m wearing my skin inside out. But these scars are invisible, only I can see and feel them. This is the stuff that love can’t fix.Liz DeBetta is a PhD candidate in humanities and culture, Union Institute & University (certificates in Women’s and Gender Studies/Creative Writing); a lecturer of English at Utah Valley University; and the writing and performance mentor for Act Risk No More. A member of Actor’s Equity and SAG-AFTRA, she’s interested in performance-based narrative writing for healing and social change from a feminist perspective within the areas of adoption culture and reproductive justice as a way of disrupting dominant narratives and shifting paradigms for adoptees and birth mothers. Her writing has been published on “Dear Adoption.com” and in “#MeToo: Essays About How and Why This Happened, What it Means and How to Make Sure it Never Happens Again.” She’s a team facilitator of Adoptees Connect in Salt Lake City and is researching the benefits of creative writing to heal adoptee trauma.

Look for more essays on various aspects of genetic identity here. Do you have a story to share? We want to hear from you. Find our submission guidelines here.

By B.K. JacksonAuthor Dani Shapiro has explored family secrets from every angle in an exceptional decades-long writing career that until now yielded five novels and four memoirs. Revisiting those works, it’s tempting to believe everything she’s experienced and written has been prelude to her 10th book, the bestselling “Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love.” In an earlier memoir, for example, “Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life,” she describes herself in childhood as having been strangely aware unknowns were waiting to be discovered. She didn’t know what she didn’t know, but she was certain there were secrets. Already, she had an untamed curiosity, an urgent need to shed light on those unknowns, and an intuitive understanding of the ways of a writer. She eavesdropped, snooped, and struggled to get to the bottom of things. “I didn’t know that this spying was the beginning of a literary education,” she writes. “That the need to know, to discover, to peel away the surface was a training ground for who and what I would grow up to become.”

But when she grew up, one thing she never felt a need to get to the bottom of was her story of origin. Despite the blond hair and striking blue eyes that almost daily brought the same comment — “You don’t look Jewish” — she had no doubt about where she came from and who her people were. She took enormous pride in being the progeny of Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, revered leaders in their communities. “They are the tangled roots — thick, rich, and dark — that bind me to the turning earth.” She was grounded by her Orthodox heritage, its traditions touchstones in her life that tethered her to her father, Paul, whom she adored and whose sadness captivated her. She felt no such tenderness toward her mother, Irene, with whom she had a tenuous relationship. As a child, she says, “I’d had the fantasy — a form of hope, now a staggering irony — that she wasn’t actually my mother.” She told their stories in fiction and in memoir, examining the family as one might a jewel, holding it to the light and observing both its beauty and its flaws.

Although Shapiro had no curiosity about her lineage, when her husband, Michael, who wanted to learn more about his own ancestry, ordered a test for each of them, she went along gamely. But she absorbed its results in stages, in a haze of denial. She was stunned to learn she was only 52% European Jewish and mystified by a match to a first cousin she knew nothing about. Soon after, Michael bounded up the stairs one evening with his laptop in his hands — the rhythm of his steps signaling something urgent — announcing that her half sister Susie, her father’s older daughter, had sent the results of her DNA test, the import of which he’d already gleaned. Shapiro and Susie shared no DNA. This quickly led to the unthinkable yet indisputable conclusion that Shapiro was not the child of the father she adored — the man who died many years earlier after having been in a horrific car crash, whose influence and presence in her life, even now, she cherishes every day.

Readers who’ve experienced similarly staggering DNA surprises can guess exactly what came next — a call to AncestryDNA — because surely there must have been a mistake. The vials must have been switched. But of course they weren’t. As Shapiro acknowledges, “Millions of people have had their DNA tested by Ancestry, and no such mistake has ever been made.” As denial faded, questions bloomed: “If my father wasn’t my father, who was my father? If my father wasn’t my father, who was I?”

“Still Writing” was written long before Shapiro’s life was upended by this shocking revelation. Rereading it now, I’m struck by her prescience. Her thoughts point like arrows toward a future she couldn’t have guessed would come to pass. In the opening pages she writes, “Secrets floated through our home like dust motes in the air. Every word spoken by my parents contained within it a hard kernel of what wasn’t being said.” Among the things that weren’t being said were that her parents had had difficulty conceiving and sought treatment at a sketchy fertility clinic in the shadow of the University of Pennsylvania. Its director, Dr. Edmond Farris, who practiced medicine without a license, had devised a new technique for detecting ovulation that allowed men to provide sperm for artificial insemination at the ideal window of opportunity. The clinic, as did others of that era, mixed donor sperm with the husbands’ sperm to boost the chances of conception while at the same time give the couples reason to believe it was possible the husbands’ sperm prevailed to fertilize the eggs.

The technique — aptly and understatedly — was called confused artificial insemination. The truth was easy to disguise. In those years, no one could have imagined a future in which anyone could spit in a tube, pull back the curtain on such deception, and nullify any promise of anonymity that had been given the sperm donors.

Many who’ve used DNA results to find family will be stunned by the velocity of Shapiro’s success. Within 36 hours, with the help of her journalist husband and a genealogy-savvy acquaintance, she identified her biological father, who’d been a medical student at the University of Pennsylvania. But that discovery may never have happened had Shapiro not dredged up a shard of memory — a vaguely recollected offhand comment her mother had dropped like a grenade many years earlier about a fertility clinic in Philadelphia. What Shapiro does with that information kickstarts an inquiry into the facts of her origins, the ethics of donor conception, the potential consequences of revealing her secret, and — most compelling — the nature of genetic inheritance.

Don’t worry. There’s no spoiler alert needed. The facts aren’t what drives the narrative. Rather, it’s Shapiro’s tender dissection of the fallout of those facts that make “Inheritance” a page turner. As she wonders whether she’ll ever meet her biological father, she ruminates about what actually transpired, what her parents knew, and what it meant to them. And she reaches out to elderly relatives, doctors, religious leaders, and experts in donor conception to answer the question that tortures her: had her parents lied to her or had they themselves been deceived? She withstands an avalanche of grief and emerges to dig deep into the bigger questions. Who is she now? How will it change her relationships? What are the ethical issues associated with anonymity in donor conception? What is it that makes us who we are? What does it mean to forge a new identity and craft a new personal narrative in midlife? How do we live with uncertainty? And, above all, what does it mean to be a father?

An extraordinarily skilled and graceful writer, Shapiro performs a sleight of hand. She makes the reader feel as if she’s pulled up a chair and said, “Let me tell you what happened to me.” The story unfolds as naturally as a conversation between friends over many cups of coffee. But “Inheritance” is no simple recitation of facts. It’s a careful construction, equal parts brilliant detective story and philosophical inquiry.

One doesn’t need to have had a similar shock to be moved to tears by Shapiro’s sorrow and distress. Those who have traveled a similar path, however, may read breathlessly, with a lump in their throats. They may feel, as I did, that Shapiro eavesdropped on their conversations, got inside their skin, echoed their words, channeled their every emotion. “Inheritance” will linger in the minds of all who have yearned to belong and resonate with anyone who’s struggled to answer the question, “Who am I?”

By B.K. JacksonMost of the losses we experience in life require little explanation and are universally recognized and understood, such as the death of our loved ones. They were among us — and then they weren’t. We may have witnessed their transition from life to death, from breathing to not breathing. We may have seen their bodies lowered to the ground and have attended ceremonies acknowledging the gravity of our losses. We miss the dead, mourn for them, and are comforted by others who understand and may grieve with us. Over time, the sadness over their absence, while it may never evaporate, dissipates.

But some loss is less clear, even more distressing, and may last forever. Ambiguous loss is the traumatic loss of a person, a relationship, or even the desire for a relationship, for which there is no possibility of closure. The term may also pertain to a problem that can’t be solved or a situation that has no resolution. Pauline Boss, a family therapist, educator, and researcher who coined the term ambiguous loss in the late 1970s, describes it as a type “that has no validation and no body to bury. It’s a situation that leads to disenfranchised grief — grief that society doesn’t know what to do with or discriminates against.”

There are two types of ambiguous loss. One arises in situations where there is a physical presence but a lack of psychological presence, for example, when a loved one has dementia or is emotionally unavailable. The other type, conversely, emerges when there’s a psychological presence but a physical absence, such as when a death is presumed to have occurred but there’s no body, as was the case for many of the individuals with whom Boss has worked — loved ones of pilots missing in action in Vietnam, victims of 9/11 who were never identified, and individuals presumed dead after the catastrophic tsunami that struck Japan in 2011. The ambiguity is caused by a lack of information about the loss.

It’s this second type of ambiguous loss that’s commonly experienced by individuals who’ve been stripped of information about their genetic identities, whether as a result of adoption, donor conception, or other circumstances of misattributed parentage.

According to JaeRan Kim, PhD, MSW, assistant professor of social work at the University of Washington Tacoma, also falling under the umbrella of ambiguous losses are “any circumstances where what you think you understand about a relationship turns out to be unclear, misleading, or unknown.”  Adoptees who find out later in life they were adopted, for example, “often feel a sense of betrayal by their parents and may question everything about their relationship,” she says. “They may also experience the loss and uncertainty about their birth/first parents — who they were and what became of them.” The same is true for NPEs (non-parental events or not parent expected) and donor conceived people. Ambiguous loss, Kim adds, is also about the inability or failure of others to acknowledge that there’s sadness or grief over the loss.

More important to consider for adoptees, says Kim, “is whether they have specific information about the adoption circumstances, the reasons for their relinquishment, and the knowledge that their birth/first families are okay, and if there’s been some sort of sense of peace about that loss. It’s also necessary to consider if the adoptive parents were open about including the birth/first parents and families in their lives, even if only in symbolic ways.” Ambiguous loss, she says, “is more difficult to manage if adoptees feel it is not safe to voice their thoughts and feelings about wanting to know more about the circumstances that led to their adoptions and if they are shamed or shut down if they question or mourn the loss of their birthparents.”

For adoptees and NPEs, the lack of information about their origins creates ambiguity when they can’t identify a birth parent, can’t locate a biological family member they have identified, or learn that a biological family member they’ve never met has died, shattering the dream that one day they will connect. In each case, there’s a loss of the promise of a relationship that doesn’t yet — and may never — exist. It’s heartbreaking in these cases of lack of information about genetic identity, Boss says, because there are multiple layers of loss and ambiguity. Individuals may feel shattered by the death of birthparents they’ve never met, feelings further complicated when they’ve been rejected or shamed by their birth or social families.

These losses, Boss writes in her 2000 book, “Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief,” are “always stressful and often tormenting.” They’re the most devastating and traumatizing of losses because sufferers must live with ambiguity that might stay with them throughout their lives. She illustrates her point, quoting from an old English nursery rhyme, with an example certain to resonate with anyone who grieves an absent parent:

As I was walking up the stair,

I met a man who was not there

He was not there again today

Oh, how I wish he’d go away

While some people have higher thresholds of tolerance than others for ambiguity, most people find it deeply disturbing and stress-inducing. It’s difficult to move forward when you don’t know for certain if the loss is permanent and when there are no rituals for mourning the loss. Those who’ve never experienced an ambiguous loss may not understand the depth of the pain or the level of stress it arouses.

Boss observes that among the many potential consequences people suffering ambiguous losses may experience are:

• a freezing of the grief process
• a sense of being stuck in limbo
• an inability to make sense of the situation or to make decisions
• depression, anxiety, and substance abuse
• feeling immobilized
• exhaustion, hopelessness, and helplessness.

These symptoms are similar to those of complicated grief but are the result of ambiguity, not death.If you’re struggling with an ambiguous loss, you may consider seeing a therapist. But, according to Boss, that’s not always helpful. Therapists, she explains — particularly psychologists and psychiatrists — often focus on inner psychiatric issues, but in the case of ambiguous loss, there are none. She characterizes ambiguous loss as a stress-based problem and uses a non-medical approach to distinguish it from a pathology. “It’s not like you have a mental illness such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. You don’t have to adjust to a disease that’s inside you,” she explains. “The pathology lies in the situation, not in your psyche. If you experience distress over an ambiguous loss, there’s nothing wrong with you, but there is something wrong with what happened to you,” she says. “The problem is that you’ve been dealt a card that was not your fault, and now you have to try to figure it out, but there may be no answer.”

That’s not to say that a therapist isn’t ever necessary or can’t help. If you need a high degree of control in your life, you might spend all your time digging and digging for answers and not living your life, Boss says. A therapist can help you change course, but you must choose one who understands that the problem lies in the context of the situation, not in the inner workings of your mind. Perhaps surprisingly, grief therapists might not be the best choice, because they’re trained to deal with loved ones who are dead — with the certainty of death. But you may not have that. Further, unless they’ve specifically been trained in this particular kind of loss, Boss says, therapists may try to put a timeline on your grief, but with ambiguous loss, “there is no timeline. It’s a forever thing.” Look for a family therapist or a social worker, she advises, because they’re trained to look systemically at your environment, at the context, and at what happened to you.

And don’t look for comfort in knowledge of the five stages of grief, Boss adds. It’s a concept that’s been widely misunderstood, taken out of its original context, and generally accepted even though there’s no evidence that it has merit. Society, and especially American society, loves the idea of these stages, she says, because they promise a way to get over it, to gain what she calls the myth of closure. “It’s an ugly word, closure. I don’t believe in it. It doesn’t exist, and why should it? It’s not needed.” The idea that we need to get over loss and move on is cruel, she says, because we now know that we need to learn to live with grief, even when there is a death.If your loss remains in your thoughts, that’s understandable, but it shouldn’t control your mind, Boss says, because then it becomes an obsession.

In her 2006 book, “Loss, Trauma, and Resilience: Therapeutic Work with Ambiguous Loss,” she lays out guidelines therapists can use to help individuals suffering ambiguous losses. But there are a number of things you can do on your own. Not that there’s a simple fix. Or even any fix. The solution is a matter of increasing your tolerance for, and comfort with, unanswered questions.

Once you acknowledge the losses and recognize they’re ambiguous, there are two key goals: learning to accept the ambiguities instead of struggling against them, and mitigating the stress the losses cause. The challenge is not to get over ambiguous loss, because that’s impossible, but to get used to it, to increase your resilience and learn to be able to live without knowing and move forward despite an ongoing mystery.

Accepting ambiguity, Boss admits, isn’t easy. “We live in a society that’s mastery-oriented. We want the answers, otherwise it’s as if we’ve failed. We have to fight that societal pressure for certainty, for answer to all questions.” She likes the idea that we’re a can-do society, but there are some questions that have no answers and may never have answers.

The way forward isn’t controlling and overcoming, it’s surrendering. “It’s sort of a mind game to live with unanswered questions, but it helps to lower the stress or anxiety associated with the ambiguity,” Boss says. One method she recommends is meditation. “It’s always good, but it’s especially helpful when you’re faced with questions you can’t find an answer to. It helps you lower the need to control and find answers.” Searching for certainty has a lot to do with a need for control and mastery, which often serves us well, but when there are no answers it’s self-defeating. “I think we have to consciously, mindfully, say, ‘I will not be able to find the answer to this,’ or maybe, ‘I found the answer and I don’t like it, but I have to be able to make that less important so it doesn’t control my life.’”

Part of the solution is deciding to accept the ambiguity using both/and thinking, which Boss describes as holding two opposing ideas in one’s mind at the same time. It’s a way of acknowledging that there may be more than one way to look at something, and though the views may be contradictory, they are both true. A woman who was abandoned by her mother, for example, might say, “I both will never know my mother, and I have loving mother figures in my life.” Another example, Boss says, is, “I am both sad about my lost hopes and dreams, and happy about some new ones.”

In large part it’s a matter of “learning to live in the now, of acknowledging and recognizing for yourself that there’s a part of your past that you’ll never claim, and although that’s not okay, it’s something you can live with,” according to Kathleen R. Gilbert, PhD, professor emerita in the Department of Applied Health Science, Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington and an Association for Death Education and Counseling Fellow in Thanatology (FT).

If you’re in the grip of an ambiguous loss, these coping strategies may sound either far too difficult or much too simplistic, too paradoxical. It might be hard to hear that the solution to ambiguity is acceptance. But, as the experts indicate, there’s no way to create certainty in an inherently and invariably ambiguous situation. Continuing to obsessively question and wonder about things that can’t be known, says Gilbert, “trying and trying to find answers when there are none is like a fool’s errand.” It’s frustrating to hear, she admits, that the answer may be “mindfulness, centering, accepting, and giving yourself permission to be okay in this present moment with where you are and what you know.”  It may make you want to throw up your hands and scream, she says, but the only way to ease the suffering is to learn to react differently.

It’s also helpful to find creative outlets, both to reduce stress and help make meaning when meaning is difficult to grasp. Boss recommends arts-related activities and storytelling. Journaling and creative writing are extremely helpful, she says, as are painting and physical activity. “Movement is exceedingly important to work out stress. It’s a Western idea that you need to sit in a chair and face a therapist. It’s not always the best thing to do.” Sitting in a therapist’s office, for people who have been traumatized, may be less useful than if the therapist would go for a walk with them. You can explore these activities on your own or look for an arts, music, or movement therapist to guide you.

These activities, says Gilbert, may be among the ways you can make meaning when there seems to be no meaning, to make sense when things don’t seem to make sense. It’s about coming up with an explanation you can live with. “It’s not about a broader, deeper, more philosophical meaning — that’s what a lot of people think when they use the term meaning.” Instead, she says, “You’re looking for something that can help calm you and let you live your life in the world with the information you have. The question is, how can you reframe everything in a way that makes sense to you and that lets you go forward?”

Talking to other people who’ve had a similar experience is helpful as well, says Gilbert, “not necessarily to look for advice or direction, but just to toss around ideas and hear what other people have done, how they’ve made sense of things, and how they’ve functioned.” And in return, being able to help others is another way of making meaning.

Grieving, Gilbert concludes, “is really an external expression of an internal process of trying to get to be where you can live with the reality you’re in now.” When you boil it down, Boss agrees, adapting to ambiguous losses comes down to this: “We can’t always have what we want, and we can learn to live with that. Hopefully you get 90% of what you want, and I think we can adjust our coping style and build our resistance to live with even that 10% we can’t have.”

By Billie BakhshiDear Donna,

How’s my big sister? I’ve fantasized about asking you this ever since I found out you existed.

I thought I was the oldest of our mother’s children, but then there you were.

I was 24 years old, nursing my second-born on the sofa when our mother suddenly burst out and said, “I’m not going to my grave with this.” She revealed that she’d been 17, unwed, and pregnant in 1967 and had been sent to live at the Booth Maternity Home for Unwed Mothers. The unnamed boyfriend wouldn’t marry her, so her parents made arrangements for her to be squirreled away, protecting the family from shame.

She lived in a dorm. Think “Madeline” — remember, the children’s book? Except all the girls were pregnant and weren’t to talk to each other to preserve their anonymity. When they walked outside — not in two straight lines as in Madeline — they each wore a slim gold wedding band so they could be passed off as respectable, married, mothers to be.

At Catholic Charities, unwed mothers were “prepared” to relinquish their babies. They were told they were saving the baby from the stigma of being a “bastard” and were being given chance at a re-do in life.

She named you Donna, after the song by Ritchie Valens, which she heard playing on the radio when she was there at the home for unwed mothers. You were whisked away after being born. She saw you a year later, at a relinquishment hearing, and she described you as tall and blonde.

I was stunned by my mother’s confession. I wanted to find you. You’d been there all along — the big sister I always wanted. But then our mother shut down and she’s refused to say another word since.

Armed with your birthdate, the name of the hospital, and the adoption agency, I began to investigate. Booth Maternity Center was gone, and St. Joseph’s University had bought the property. Catholic Charities would not release any information. Sealed adoption. They allowed me to write you a letter. If you ever went looking for it, you’d find me. Maybe. Vital Statistics was another dead end. I posted on the International Soundex Reunion Registry and hoped. With each passing year, my hope of finding you has dimmed.

I imagine you’re the lucky one. The wanted one. Your adoptive parents must have really, really wanted you and fallen in love with you at first sight. Mom was beautiful when she was young, and she always had an eye for a gorgeous man. I just know you’re gorgeous, too. How your mom and dad must love you. I know that not all adoption stories are the fairy tales the Hallmark Channel wants us to believe they are, but I hope yours was.

Meanwhile, I was our mother’s second attempt at keeping a man who didn’t want her. You escaped my fate. Maybe my existence was a constant reminder to my mother that she was unwanted. She never loved me. My first memory of her is of her beating me. I learned to keep my distance, to lay low.

She was unpredictable, her mental health an issue since childhood and exacerbated by drug use. Joan Crawford had nothing on her, and I became the codependent caregiver.

At 17, I was so starved for love that I found myself in the very same circumstances that our mother had been in all of those years earlier — unmarried and pregnant. And she tried to inflict the same heartbreak on me, making calls to maternity homes and adoption agencies to make arrangements for me.

I didn’t know our mother’s history at that point, Donna. I only knew that I could not live without my baby. But when I learned about you, when I fully realized the depth of our mother’s cruelty — being so willing to inflict on me the same heartbreak, completely unnecessarily in the 1990s — it was more than I could bear. I distanced myself for many years.

She never saw my daughter, except in pictures, until Serena was 4. She completely missed the first milestones. I couldn’t bring my daughter near her. What if she gave Serena away when my back was turned?

Cody was the first newborn our mother saw me interact with. I think seeing me, blissfully breastfeeding, triggered her. I was happy. She was not. Her response — her resentment and anger that I had a baby and a husband while she had neither — was, “You have a sister. No, I won’t tell you anything about her. Now stew.”

Our mother is no longer a part of my life. I am finally healing. That said, what do I bring to the table?

• A completely unhappy family history of intergenerational trauma, abuse, and mental illness.
• An obsession with breaking the curse of said intergenerational trauma, a happy marriage, and four great kids who would adore having an Auntie Mame. (I warned you that I fantasize.)

 Confession: I’m so afraid of what I might find in you. Are you plagued with the same mental health problems and addictions as our mother? Will this information disrupt your life or hurt you? Because I don’t want that. No, I can’t help you bridge a relationship with her. Please don’t ask. I burned that bridge permanently.

I only wish you love, joy, and peace, dear sister, even if we never meet.

I’m on 23&Me and hitting Ancestry next.

Love,

BillieBillie Bakhshi lives with her husband and children in Las Vegas, Nevada. You can read more of her musings at her blog, The Family Caretaker.

Look for more essays on various aspects of genetic identity here. Do you have a story to share? We want to hear from you. Find our submission guidelines here.

Amber van Moessner, Aubrey Smyth, and T.J. Raphael, Alison Luntz Photography

When Amber van Moessner was 29 years old, she was shocked to learn through taking a 23andMe DNA test that she’d been donor conceived and that the father she’d grown up with was not her biological father. To try to make sense of this bewildering and distressing news, she took a deep dive into the research on the subject. “I was doing a ton of reading and interviewing anyone I could talk to about this issue — doctors, medical historians, other donor conceived folks.”

At the same time, filmmaker Aubrey Smyth was casting about for subject for a new film. After her short film about surviving cancer, “The Bout,” won the grand prize at the Moët Moment Film Festival, Smyth was given tickets to the Tribeca Film Festival, where she learned that Tribeca Studios and DNA testing company 23andMe had partnered to make “Identity” — a series of short, impactful stories about journeys of personal discovery.

van Moessner mentioned her story and her research project to T. J. Raphael, a journalist and producer at Slate, who knew that Smyth was in search of a documentary subject that might be a good match for the Tribeca-23andMe project. After Raphael (a consultant on the film) connected the two women, van Moessner invited Smyth to her support group for donor conceived people, where Smyth was shocked to learn that some donor conceived people had inherited genetic disorders from their donors and had no legal ability to access information about their donors’ medical history. “Almost all of the support group members had been lied to by their parents about their conception,” recalls Smyth, who was inspired by the way van Moessner and the other group members were advocating for change at the state and federal level. “It made a big impression on me because the only stories I heard on the news were about the big, happy family reunions and how everyone looked alike — end of story. I wanted to give Amber the platform to reveal the realities of being a donor conceived person and raise awareness about the lack of regulation in the fertility industry,” she says.

The result of this serendipitous connection is “The Need to Know,” a powerful documentary film that premiered on Vimeo during the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival. Filmed in a total of 5 days in Brooklyn, Chicago, and Sacramento, the documentary, which took six months to complete, manages in a mere 11 minutes to express the range of complicated emotions experienced by donor conceived people and the messy web of issues arising from ethically dubious fertility industry practices.

In the film, van Moessner recalls her surprise when a DNA test reveals that she’s primarily Jewish, yet no one in her family is Jewish. In an emotional phone conversation, she confronts her parents, who acknowledge the truth, telling her they chose to believe it was her father’s sperm, not the donor’s, that resulted in her conception. “How do you think about who you are,” van Moessner asks, “when you don’t know who you are?” At 23 weeks pregnant and concerned about the health of her future child, van Moessner, along with her newfound half-sister, Kaitlin Thompson, begin to act on their need to know who their father is. What unfolds is a striking synopsis of the costs of donor anonymity. Smyth follows van Moessner to Chicago, where she meets Nick Isel and his attorney, Michelle J. Rozovics, to discuss Isel’s FDA Citizen Petition requesting an end to donor anonymity, increased duration of record retention, and record redundancy. As Smyth interviews several other donor conceived individuals, advocates, and an egg donor, their stories speak to the need for ethical oversight and regulation of an industry that’s almost entirely ungoverned. More than their words, van Moessner’s expressive face communicates the pain and frustration of finding herself in an untenable position over which she has no control.

Smyth, who at 21 created her own production company, Gingersnap NYC, has been a film and commercial director for nine years, with a background in narrative filmmaking and documentary-style branded content. “I was so moved by Amber’s story that I decided to direct my first documentary, and I wanted to tell Amber’s story with strong intention.” She describes the narrative techniques she used in the composition and framing to symbolize and accentuate the content of a scene and tell van Moessner’s story:

“In a scene in which Amber’s biological father tells her and her half-sister that they have 75 siblings, we frame only half of their faces and leave negative space between them. This is juxtaposed with an angle on the father, who is centered and fills the empty space. Later, the camera lingers outside his house on a charm of hummingbirds he cares for, symbolizing in an unforeseen way the 75 children he’s fathered. The group scene shows each person stationary and centered in the frame so the audience must concentrate on what they’re expressing. When Amber is interviewed, she’s placed against a black and white background to convey how this issue is not one-sided. The prisms and distorted faces at the end symbolize the donor conceived people who discover the truth and question their identity, many of whom told me they would stare into the mirror and not recognize the person looking back at them.”

“Documentary film,” Smyth says, “has the unique ability to change minds. ‘The Need to Know,’ she adds, “treats conflicting perspectives fairly, and we were able to reach people with emotion and logic. We cover the ethical and legislative issues that donor conceived people have with the business of creating people, and it was important for the film to uphold integrity. We relied on facts while simultaneously conveying very difficult emotions.”

It wasn’t easy for van Moessner to speak so candidly and publicly about something so new, shocking, and painful. “I think a lot of people wonder why I would share something so personal and really drag my family through that. But, ultimately, if I can stop one family from lying to their child, or make someone reconsider being, or using, an anonymous donor, it will all be worth it,” she says. “I don’t want anyone else to go through the pain I went through.” Because a lot of people in her family didn’t know her story, she describes the film as being a “bit of a coming out. I was able to rip off the Band-Aid of ‘telling’ without having to individually tell dozens of people. My parents were hesitant about being involved, but they were ultimately supportive as well.”

However difficult it was to tell her story, van Moessner believes it also proved to be healing. “It was a way to process my grief, confusion, anger, and frustration,” she says. “It made me feel like I could manage all of that if I could do something about it.” Doing something required increasing awareness, and she remembered well how little aware she had been about these issues until the subject hit home. “Before I found out I was donor conceived, sperm or egg donation was never something I thought twice about,” she says. “I had friends who’d considered being egg donors, and I knew sperm donation existed, but I had never thought about the implications or the industry behind it. And now that I’m telling my story, so many people have said to me, ‘I never thought about this!’ So I really wanted to raise a flag and say, ‘hey, have we as a society really thought this through?’” She points to a meme that turns up often in the donor conceived community — a quote from “Jurassic Park”: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

The response to the “The Need to Know” has been overwhelming and positive. Not only was the film viewed 2,000 times in two days, but van Moessner received an outpouring of positive response from individuals in the donor conceived community. One person told her they posted the film on social media as a way of coming out to friends about having been donor conceived. Smyth believes the facts presented in the film offer a compelling argument for the need to know about family medical history. “I hope the film proves why it’s important for donor conceived people to have access to their medical information and to know who their biological parents are and shows the actions donor conceived people are taking to change the system. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine, Smyth observes, has acknowledged that anonymity of sperm and egg donors is no longer sustainable due to the advent and popularity of genealogical DNA testing. “This conversation urgently needed to happen because the law has not kept up with modern technology.”

Smyth hopes to extend the conversation by developing a docuseries that looks at the ethics of donor conception and the fertility industry and examines pertinent legislation. “There are many sides to this topic, and I want to explore the variety of perspectives.”

And van Moessner, though encouraged by the reception and pleased and proud to have raised so many important issues, acknowledges that there’s more work to do. “The struggle with creating a short film is that there are so many issues we left on the cutting room floor. I want to talk about donor fraud. I want to talk about the complicated ethnic/race/class issues that abound in the donor conceived world. I want to talk about older donor conceived people who have fewer resources when they find out and discuss the implications of that. I want to talk about LGBT issues and how they fit into this conversation. There are so many layers to this issue — we really just scratched the surface, but I hope it’s enough to pique people’s interest and let them do their own investigating.”“The Need to Know” is one of 23 equally compelling films that all explore feelings arising from a DNA journey. The project began, says Tracy Keim, VP of brand and consumer marketing at 23andMe, when the company was invited to be a sponsor of the Tribeca Film Festival. 23andMe suggested something a little different —  a more branded integrated sponsorship that would tap into Tribeca’s community of filmmakers for ideas about films concerning DNA stories. “They were excited,” Keim says, “because they’d never done anything like this and it was a cool challenge for the next level of cobranding and sponsorship.”

The project came together quickly. “We flew out last year to the Tribeca Film Festival and spoke to a group of filmmakers, took submissions, and looked at more than 50 treatments that were amazing.” They were looking for tension-filled stories with raw subjects that illustrate what’s at stake in these DNA journeys. They selected and commissioned 23 filmmakers — insisting that at least half be women — and set them loose with virtually no guidelines or restrictions except a requirement to show a rough cut and permit editing. “We were very light-handed,” Keim says. “We didn’t tell them how to make the films or what to do.”

Anticipating 3- to 5-minute films, 23andMe was surprised when many came in at closer to 13 minutes. “The filmmakers loved it because as they got into it they felt so passionate when they realized the humanity behind the science, so they wanted to do more.” To celebrate the launch of the films, the 23 filmmakers and their subjects were invited to the Tribeca Film Festival, and five of the female filmmakers took part in a panel moderated by filmmaker Dylan McGee, who runs Makers, a platform that aspires to assemble the largest collection of women’s stories.

What these extraordinary filmmakers captured are diverse stories of birthparents on quests to find the children they’ve longed for their whole lives, children looking for the parents they’ve never known, adoptees searching for siblings, NPEs (non-parental events or not parent expected) rocked by surprises, transracial adoptees exploring their lost cultures — all people reaching for the pieces of the puzzles of their lives, each seeking to understand how their past has influenced their present. These rich, captivating stories skate across issues of culture, ethnicity, race, human rights, shame, and truth. Each in its own way addresses how we make meaning of our histories and DNA connections and how we define or redefine ourselves.

Embracing knowledge of the past can be empowering, says Keim, whose aim is that the films serve as a platform that will embolden viewers and let them “look into their past to heal their pain, move forward, or discover something new that can lead to a more fulfilling life.” She hopes the films give viewers courage and help them realize they’re not alone.

View the trailer here and watch all the films on Vimeo. In addition, on YouTube you can view films about 23andMe customers created by documentarians from Transient Pictures, a NYC documentary production company. You can also watch customer-submitted stories — and submit your own — at the company’s Stories Page.

Julie Potiker

Mindfulness expert and author Julie Potiker is an attorney who began her serious study and investigation of mindfulness after graduating from the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program at the University of California, San Diego. She went on to train to teach Mindful Self-Compassion and completed the Positive Neuroplasticity Training Professional Course with Rick Hanson. She teaches these and other mindfulness techniques in her Mindful Methods for Life trainings and writes about them in her new book, “Life Falls Apart, but You Don’t Have To: Mindful Methods for Staying Calm in the Midst of Chaos.”

We talked to her about how mindfulness can help when you feel as if the rug’s been pulled out from under you.It’s human nature to want to control events in our lives. One of my favorite quotes, attributed to the Buddha, is that “we make our own hell by wishing things were different than they are.” The only thing I know we can control is our reaction to events. By practicing a set of techniques to break the discursive loop of ruminating, we can calm down and eventually find joyful moments.We cannot eliminate chaos, but we can learn to deal with what life dishes out with equanimity — finding the calm in the storm.Experience-dependent neuroplasticity is the concept that we can use the mind to change the brain for the better. Our thoughts and emotions fire neurons in our brains, which then fire together and form new neural circuits. What fires together wires together. Rick Hanson explains in his book “Hardwiring Happiness,” “Taking in the good is the deliberate internalization of positive experiences into implicit memory.”

It’s normal that our brains tend to hang onto negative information. That’s why noticing positive mental states when they happen (and calling up positive mental states when you need one) is so important. You are choosing to make your brain a happier place.Rick Hanson’s anagram for experience-dependent neuroplasticity:

H – Have a good experience. Be mindful so you are aware that a good experience is occurring!

E – Enrich it to install it.

A – Absorb it as if you are filling your body up with the good experience.

L – Link positive and negative material. This is an optional last step, which explains how one might supplant a bad mental state with a good mental state.You can practice mindfulness as a meditation, but you can also weave it seamlessly into your day so that you’re practicing this calming skill whether or not you have time to sit and meditate. For example:

• Practice mindfulness while brushing your teeth: This is a great place to start. Begin your mindful day as you wake up and do your morning routine. Brush your teeth mindfully by turning your full attention into each step (putting on the paste, brushing, rinsing) and each sensation (tastes, smells, and textures; the feeling of the brush). Tip: it’s easier if you close your eyes!
• Practice mindful eating: Be the observer and pay mindful attention to the way you prepare, serve, and eat your food. Slice and dice mindfully; put your fork to your mouth mindfully; taste and chew mindfully. It’s also lovely to consider the source of the particular food — where and how it was grown, the farmers who produced it, the distribution chain that allowed you to enjoy your meal. That naturally leads to a moment of gratitude.
• Practice mindful walking: You can do this mindful activity whether you’re taking a leisurely stroll at your favorite outdoor spot or hoofing it across the parking lot as you head into work. Pay attention to the soles of your feet as they meet the ground, the rhythm of your steps; your breath in and out of your nose, the feel of the air on your face, and the sights, smells, and sounds around you.
• Let music help you be in the moment: Make a playlist of songs that fill you with good feelings. You can use this playlist to boost your experience of cooking or walking or driving or anything else you can enjoy with music. (You can even just sit back and focus on the music!)

We primates are wired to connect. The sense of connection and common humanity helps stave off isolation, which may lead to depression. Lean in and reach out! Connection and compassion are antidotes to shame.Ask yourself, “What is OK right now?” Make a list of things that have been known to bring you joy, and — even if you don’t feel like it — choose one activity and do it. Notice whether any happiness is arising. You can also start a gratitude practice and pay special attention to everything in your life you are grateful for. The science behind this is solid; writing down what you are grateful for will help you to feel better. You cannot feel joyless and grateful at the same time.Mindfulness meditation gives your brain a much needed break. Meditation lowers your heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration. It decreases anxiety and depression and helps you maintain healthy habits like diet and exercise. It helps with interpersonal relationships, because you become less reactive. As your ability to pause strengthens, it enables you to choose a more skillful response in conversation with others.People make time for things that are important. This is a free tool that may help you live with less suffering and more ease. Shouldn’t that be enough of a motivation to try it?I love the Insight Timer app. It’s free and it won’t get you hooked and then charge you to continue like some of the other popular apps. I love that, although there are more than 15,000 meditations on the app, it’s not overwhelming because it’s organized by how many minutes you want to spend as well as by topic category. For example, if you have six minutes and you want a meditation focused on letting go of anger, you can find it there. You can find three of my meditations here.

• Make a joy list: Write down a list of things that bring you joy, then do one or two of those activities every day.
• Start a gratitude practice: Write down a few things you are grateful for or a few things you enjoyed each day. Write a gratitude letter to someone. Let these feelings of gratitude fill you up.
• Practice meditating: There are several great apps out there like Insight Timer to try. Even if you only have a few minutes, you can select a short meditation that works for you. Pick a time and a meditation that fits into your schedule.

By Kevin GladishOn May 26, 2015, thanks to a change in Ohio law, I received a copy of my original birth certificate in the mail. That day, I finally learned a truth that I had long suspected but denied my entire life — that I was adopted. I was 43 years old.

Six weeks later, I began writing and speaking publicly about it. And I haven’t really stopped.

I had no idea then how writing and storytelling would save me. In those first days, my words were raw and filled with both a newfound freedom and a newfound grief. Learning that I was, in fact, adopted, was like putting on prescription glasses for the first time after years of not even knowing I couldn’t see. But it also meant seeing how long I’d been lied to and what believing those lies had cost me.

I posted my blog to Facebook and waited. At first, my confessional ramble felt like a selfish act of rebellion. Until then, I’d only told a few people what I’d learned. I knew that the news would come as a shock to most — not so much that I was adopted, but that I had only just now found out.

It was embarrassing, like finally admitting that I’d been pretending to laugh along with a joke that I never got, a joke that was on me the whole time. And yet there was also a relief. Despite how I felt, I knew it was not my fault. I simply could not fathom that the father I loved and trusted my whole life, a man I still today sometimes miss terribly despite everything, could look me in the eye when we were both grown men and lie. But that’s what he did. Having seen one too many clues, I’d finally gotten the guts to ask him if I was adopted.

“No,” he said. “You’re not.”

I had a decision to make, and I did what I think a lot of people do when confronted with whether to believe someone they love. I chose to ignore the growing mountain of evidence: photos and timelines that made no sense, memory fragments, and my own reflection in the mirror. I chose to believe my father.

None of this changed what I’d always felt inside. I’d spent a lifetime averting my eyes and changing the subject whenever the conversation turned to family ancestry, a topic that inexplicably made me uneasy. I’d say I was mostly Slovak (I know now I’m mostly Irish) and taught myself to repeat lines like, “I take after Mom. My sister takes after Dad.” In truth, I looked like neither, and deep down I’d always felt like a fraud playing badly at a game of charades.

That first blog post was read by hundreds of people and passed on. I got calls asking if I was OK. People connected me with online support groups of other late-discovery adoptees, with whom I shared more. And for the first time, I felt a layer of loneliness I never even knew existed begin to fall away. I began to relate to people, for the first time, as me.

Of course this was also frightening. At times I was seized with sudden irrational panics squeezing my throat and chest. I imagined losing everyone, being rejected and abandoned for telling the truth. I was sure that somewhere a meeting would be called to decide that I had stepped out of line and needed to be punished. And though my father by this time was gone, and my mother was in the grip of severe dementia, I still believed there would be dire consequences for exposing the truth.

None of this happened, of course. It was all in my mind. But such is the power of deeply held shame.

Until I began telling my own story, I’d been a character in someone else’s made-up tale. It may have been a nice story, but it wasn’t mine. And it wasn’t true. And just as I had been putting my health at risk each time I walked into a doctor’s office and wrote down someone else’s family medical history instead of my own, I was making myself soul sick every time I repeated it.  Now, I could finally start to get better.

It would be a while before I could begin to trust myself. My first instinct, to this day, is to assume that I am always wrong. “You need to listen to your gut,” I’ve been told, and it’s good advice. But what if you’d spent a lifetime convincing yourself that your gut was telling you lies? Journaling and meditation help, along with honest friends I trust. But I’ve got a ways to go.

Years later, I am still new at this. Every word I write and speak of my truth is a battle against self-doubt and uncertainty. But that’s precisely why I keep doing it, long after some would prefer I “get over it.” Again and again, I am saying: “This is me. This is true.” And every once in a while, someone will say, “Thank you. Your story helped me.” I hear not only from other late-discovery adoptees but also from those who are healing from their own family secrets and inherited shame. I listen, and our stories become a conversation, one that saves us both.

Of course there’s always a risk in telling a true story. Not everyone will want to hear it. But someone, somewhere, will need to hear it, just as badly as you need to tell it. I hope you will. I’m listening too.Kevin Gladish is a late-discovery adoptee, writer, and storytelling performer living in Chicago. He started documenting his discovery and search for birth family soon after finding out he was adopted at the age of 43 and is working on a full-length solo performance piece that is yet unnamed. He’ll take suggestions. Check out his blog, A Story with No Beginning: A Late Discovery Adoption Journey.

Look for more essays on various aspects of genetic identity here. Do you have a story to share? We want to hear from you. Find our submission guidelines here.

On an October day in 2016, Adrian Jones set out on what was for him a common pastime — a strenuous mountain bike ride with friends. Midway up a steep grade, Jones — who by all appearances was fit and healthy — began experiencing alarming symptoms including extreme fatigue, nausea, lightheadedness, and, ultimately, chest pain. His friends rushed him to Marin General Hospital, oddly the same place where the adoptee had been born almost 47 years earlier. There, he was diagnosed as having had a “widowmaker” heart attack, his left anterior descending artery having been 100% occluded.

Grateful to have survived this typically lethal heart condition, Jones heeded a voice he heard when he was in the ICU. It said, “Find your birth parents!” With the help of a genetic genealogist, he did, and he discovered that heart disease runs — gallops — in his family, having killed an uncle at age 52 and both of his maternal grandparents, his grandmother at 65 and his grandfather at 71.

Jones’ story illustrates why having a family medical history is essential. Had he known what he now knows, he would have been able to undergo appropriate screening and might have been able to detect a problem before it had the potential to become lethal.

Although many of us are blocked at every turn when trying to gather information about our inherited health risks, continuing to do everything possible to obtain such information — including advocating for the right to have it — is crucial. But until you’re able to know more about the potential issues that may be a part of your family’s legacy, DNA testing may be the only path you can take to improve your awareness of your genetic risks and minimize them.For most humans, the bulk of our DNA is sequenced similarly. A small percent of our DNA — roughly 0.5% — differs. Within that 0.5% are the genes that influence our risks for various health conditions and diseases. Though knowledge of DNA sequencing and the human genome in general has advanced tremendously, making it possible to detect vulnerability to many heritable diseases, there remains much that’s unknown. Thus, while DNA testing can help indicate possible health risks, at worst it’s imprecise and can be misinterpreted and at best it doesn’t provide the full picture. Understand going into it that it won’t give you a road map to your future health, nor will it diagnose disease. But it may permit early detection of diseases and in some cases can be a lifesaver.Although there are now many companies that offer direct-to-consumer (DTC) DNA tests, the best known of these, 23andMe, was the first to receive FDA approval to market tests providing information about genes influencing health and disease. Recently, another of the leading genealogical testing companies, MyHeritage, has begun offering a health test. The tests look for genetic variants called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that are associated with risk for developing a number of diseases, including Parkinson’s disease, age-related macular degeneration, early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, and breast cancer. They also show whether you have a genetic variant (once known as a mutation) that may contribute to diseases you can pass on to your children, such as sickle cell anemia or cystic fibrosis. If you have one copy of a gene variant associated with a condition, you are a carrier. A child whose parents both have that variant will develop that genetic disorder.

But these tests don’t tell the whole story and don’t examine all genes that influence disease risk.

Before selecting one of these tests, especially when considering one from a lesser-known business, research the company’s track record, look at the credentials of the team, and ensure that you’ll have access to representatives who will answer all your questions. Look for guidelines about choosing a DTC test from the National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine.If you’ve taken an autosomal DNA test for genealogical purposes, you can download your raw DNA file, which contains a sampling of your DNA. Then you can download that information to any of a number of services, such as Promethease, LiveWello, or Sequencing, that will use that raw data to generate health reports, in many cases involving many more conditions and risks than those addressed by the major DTC tests and in far greater detail. The results, however, can be both bewildering and anxiety-provoking. I’ve uploaded my DNA to each of these companies and, despite having been a health journalist for many years, I find the reports both difficult to understand and somewhat alarming. Even if you have a science background as well as the time and motivation to learn to how to interpret the findings, you may believe you understand the results, but it’s likely that without the assistance of a genetic counselor you may misinterpret the findings, and the consequences can be serious.

In addition to these third-party tools, new programs and apps are appearing almost daily that purport to tell you how to best eat, exercise, sleep, and even age based on your DNA. These may offer results pertaining to such traits as metabolism, muscle strength, sleep, and nutrient absorption. They may be interesting and entertaining, but their science base is questionable and they’re of little use if you’re looking to fill in the gaps of your knowledge about health risks. And as with everything, it’s a question of buyer beware. It’s a caveat that’s especially important when these companies also aim to sell you supplements, programs, or other products they claim are individualized to your specific needs as indicated by your genes. The evidence for the effectiveness of the DNA analysis and of the associated programs and products in many if not most cases is lacking.All of these DTC approaches have benefits and limitations, the former being chiefly that they’re simple, noninvasive tests that may allow you to become aware of health risks before a condition develops and to take preventive measures or they may point to existing conditions and lead you toward prompt treatment. They generally are less expensive than medical-grade tests and typically do not require recommendation by a physician. However, the gap is closing, with some newer, more affordable medical-grade options, such as tests by Invitae, Color Genomics, and some of the Helix tests, says Kirkpatrick.

Sadly, the list of the limitations of DTC testing is much longer:

Genes are only part of the picture. Just because a condition may run in your family doesn’t mean it’s truly all in your genes. Your genetic inheritance is just one component of disease risk. Also influencing your risk are your environment, your lifestyle choices, and the interplay of multiple genes. Moreover, although your genes don’t change with time, the knowledge about them and available testing options do. “Most genetic variants that are associated with disease are actually not predictive, meaning we can test for a condition but it doesn’t mean that condition is going to develop because there’s a lot more complexity to disease development,” says Kirkpatrick. A condition such as type 2 diabetes, for example, “takes more than 1,000 different markers and environmental exposures to develop, so it’s not just a one-gene, one-condition situation, and most diseases involve multiple genetic variants in multiple different areas. Individually, each of the markers may only have a small impact on the risk, but all together they can influence a person’s risk to develop that condition,” she explains.

They may provide false reassurance and arouse unnecessary worry. Consumers typically lack adequate information to allow them to interpret the results accurately and may believe, incorrectly, that because a test doesn’t flag any variants for a particular disease, they have no risk for that disease. The opposite is also true. They may see one or more variants flagged for a particular condition and assume it means they will develop the disease, when in fact the results do not, and cannot, indicate that. Genetic testing may reveal information that might be alarming, confusing, or that you simply might rather not know. If your test reveals a gene that contributes to a deadly cancer, for example, without additional information and context, you might experience a great deal of anxiety. As noted earlier, that anxiety might be misplaced, since that gene alone is no real indication of your risk and because false positives are not uncommon.

They support confirmation bias. This is when a test appears to confirm something one is expecting or hoping for. It happens frequently, particularly with reports from third-party assessments, says Kirkpatrick. Almost all of those reports, for example, she says, will flag some gene entries for breast cancer, colon cancer, and dementia. “Everyone has variants in their reports for all of these hundreds of conditions, and if they have them in their family histories, they’re going to think these tests have identified the genetic reason, but it’s quite possible that the genetic reason in that family wasn’t even on the test.”

There’s a risk of discrimination. While the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 prevents employers and health insurers from discrimination based on DNA findings, that protection is not automatically provided when it comes to life and long-term disability insurance. The Genetic Non-Discrimination Act similarly protects Canadians.

The tests are not comprehensive. Perhaps the most significant limitation of most DTC tests is that they only look for certain variants within the genome — a method called genotyping. Kirkpatrick describes it as being “like playing a game of hopscotch down the DNA, where it looks at spots here and there but isn’t really complete.” It might pick out a variant that influences your risk for a condition, but there may be thousands of others it doesn’t look at. The more comprehensive approach used in tests given by healthcare providers is known as sequencing, which looks at longer stretches of DNA or even the entire genome. This difference may be of particular concern when it comes to certain conditions such as breast cancer. For example, some DTC tests look at only a few of the thousands of variants in the two breast cancer genes called BRCA1 and BRCA2, variants that tend to be found in people of Eastern European descent.

Finding these variants is important, because both women and men with one of these variants have a higher risk of developing certain cancers. The danger is that if these DNA tests do not reveal the presence of one of these other variants, consumers might think they’re in the clear and not only may pass on further genetic testing but also may slack off on routine breast and prostate care.

Even if a woman doesn’t have one of the variants flagged by these tests, it doesn’t mean she won’t get breast cancer. She still might have one of the many variants not tested for, variants that might put her at increased risk for breast and ovarian cancers. Furthermore, genes are not the only factors that influence whether she might develop the disease. 23andMe explains these pitfalls to consumers and encourages women — and in fact all customers — to consult with a genetic counselor before testing, discuss findings with their physicians, and consider further genetic testing.

“I’ve seen people falsely reassured when they really aren’t understanding that the raw data files are not looking at the entire BRCA1 gene, for example.” They don’t realize they could still have a genetic variation that’s not included in that raw file, Kirkpatrick explains. Furthermore, she says, the raw data analyzed is different from one company to another, and even individual companies have more than one version of their test, so the information that’s extracted for download and then uploaded can vary and have different markers.

Furthermore, tests don’t yet exist for all conditions that can be genetic in origin or for all genes pertaining to a particular disease.Because of these limitations, it’s wise for everyone taking DTC tests to discuss their findings with a certified genetic counselor — an expert with deep training in genetics and counseling — before dismissing, worrying about, or acting on results. And in cases in which a test indicates a risk for a disease, it’s necessary to validate those findings through medical-grade testing. You might be tempted to bring your results to your next medical appointment, but in many cases primary care physicians aren’t aware of all the tests and aren’t necessarily able or willing to evaluate them.

Kirkpatrick advises everyone who gets results from third-party sources to work with a genetic counselor who specializes in DTC genetics. “If you’ve found a particular variant you’re anxious about, we always recommend doing confirmation testing — repeating the test, but in a medical-grade laboratory setting.” About half the time, she says, the finding will not be confirmed.

It’s advice that even the leading DTC testing companies give. 23andMe, for example, advises all customers to seek such genetic counseling before taking an at-home DNA test and to follow up with medical-grade testing when findings indicate a risk. If costs are an issue, first talk with your doctor and your insurance company to see if you may be covered.

To find a genetic counselor, ask your physician or visit the National Society of Genetic Counselors, which has a directory of more than 3,300 practitioners.While DTC tests may give you some information about your health risks, they are less complete and in many cases less reliable than those you’d get from medical-grade tests chosen with the help of a genetic counselor. Unfortunately, many consumers aren’t aware there’s another type of DNA testing available to help assess their risks. Unlike most DTC DNA tests, medical-grade tests must be recommended or ordered by a healthcare provider and in many instances are covered by insurance. For individuals without a family medical history who suffer from mysterious symptoms or have developed health conditions, such medical-grade diagnostic tests can provide valuable information that will help physicians explore additional testing and target treatment methods.

For those who take medications for certain conditions, pharmacogenomic testing (PGx) examines genes that contribute to the way you will respond to a particular medication and whether you’re likely to have adverse reactions. This is helpful, for example, to guide dosages for people taking warfarin to reduce risk of stroke or to predict adverse effects in those taking statins to lower cholesterol.

Another type of testing, proactive screening, as the name suggests, looks for variants in genes known to be linked to diseases about which individuals can be proactive — those that can be influenced by behaviors or treated when detected early. This newer type of testing, which is largely not covered by medical insurance, is not yet widely used. “Most people don’t know how to navigate the system to access the testing, and the tests haven’t been around long enough for there to be widespread understanding of their value,” says Kirkpatrick.A potential game-changer in testing is a new program called My Gene Counsel, which, according to Kirkpatrick, is trying to help people access reliable genetic information and receive confirmation testing on a mass scale. According to the company’s website, its team of “genetic counselors, scientists, and patient advocates have created streams of information to answer the questions you and your doctor have about your genetic tests results and how to use them.” The company links your results to those streams of information and shares reports with you and your healthcare provider, updating you as new information emerges and recommendations change.

According to the company’s president and CEO, Ellen Matloff, the program “allows people who have had DTC testing and have a personal or family history of cancer to get information about their health results and do verification testing in a medical-grade laboratory, if needed.” It’s recently expanded, she adds, to include people who either have a personal and/or family history of cancer and have not had DTC testing, or who have no such history but who have had a cancer-related finding via DTC testing. The program includes genetic counseling by phone by a certified genetic counselor. This program is also innovative because as the science of genetic testing evolves and results shift, it will keep consumers up to date about what these changes mean to their health.

Another company, Invitae, says Kirkpatrick, is “helping push medical-grade testing into the DTC sphere. According to the company, “The new service allows consumers to initiate and order tests themselves, and then be paired with a trained, independent clinician who reviews health history and determines the medical appropriateness of their test. Once results are available, the service provides support on next steps, including genetic counseling as appropriate, and also makes it easy for consumers to share their results directly with their personal physician.” This approach is similar to MyHeritage’s decision to include healthcare providers in ordering and helping return results regarding medical information to customers, says Kirkpatrick.Genetic testing, when results are interpreted correctly, may be a boon to individuals who don’t know who their biological families are and who, thus, are in the dark about their health risks. However, it gives only a partial picture of the risks. Melanoma, Kirkpatrick explains, is an example of a condition for which family medical history is as important, if not more important, than the genetic testing. There are several types of melanoma, she explains, some of which run more strongly in families than others, but testing hasn’t yet been developed for all cases of familial melanoma. “So if you have a family history of melanoma, it’s important to know that so you can have annual skin checks and pay more attention to any concerning skin findings, not putting it off if something develops.”

Family medical history matters, and Kirkpatrick encourages everyone to take all steps possible to learn about it. Adoptees, for example, can attempt to gain non-identifying information from the agencies or states responsible for their adoptions. And those who were adopted in the minority of states that allow access to original birth certificates can use the information those certificates contain to try to track down their biological parents. Donor conceived individuals who don’t have access to family medical history and NPEs (non-parental events or not parent expected) who also lack information may have no means other than DNA testing for searching for their biological families. Kirkpatrick offers step-by-step strategies for using DNA to find family along with a thorough discussion of medical DNA testing in her new book, “The DNA Guide for Adoptees: How to Use Genealogy and Genetics to Uncover Your Roots, Connect With Your Biological Family, and Better Understand Your Medical History.” The tips she and coauthor Shannon Combs-Bennett offer, although targeted to adoptees, will be useful as well to help donor conceived individuals and other NPEs find family.

Has rejection by family members hurt your feelings? Neuroscience suggests that the language we use to describe emotional distress is more accurate than we imagine.

If you’ve learned that a parent isn’t a biological parent, there are multiple points at which you might be vulnerable to feeling rejected. Perhaps you search for and reach out to biological family, full of hope and enthusiasm, only to be disavowed. You find that your family doesn’t wish to communicate with you at all, let alone to have a relationship with you. Or you may enter into reunion, only later to be rebuffed. Even if you haven’t been rejected in these ways, you might be preoccupied with the fear that you will. And if you have experienced early life trauma, as may occur with adoption or other disconnections from biological family, you may have lived your entire life with feelings of being unvalued or cast out.

Everyone knows rejection hurts. If you were ever chosen last for a team in grade school you remember that being excluded is painful. But most of us believe the pain is in our head. It turns out it is, but not in the way we think. Hurt feelings isn’t a figure of speech. Scientists have theorized that the pain of rejection, also called social pain, travels on the same neural pathways in the brain as does physical pain and produces the same release of endogenous brain opioids — natural painkillers.

When she was a doctoral student at the University of California, Los Angeles, psychologist Naomi Eisenberger was inspired by the language we use to describe rejection, such as having hurt feelings or being brokenhearted. She wondered if it were more than a matter of linguistics. In a now famous experiment known as Cyberball, she and her research team had participants play a virtual ball tossing game at the same time their brain activity was being measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). When participants perceived that they were being excluded — that other players were failing to toss them the ball — the regions of the brain where physical pain is processed lit up on their MRIs, indicating that the neural circuits that cause injury to be perceived as pain are the same circuits that cause social rejection to feel like physical injury. It appears our brains process emotional and physical pain in the same way.

These effects were replicated by other research. In one study, for example, when individuals who had a recent romantic breakup were shown photos of their former lovers, the regions of their brains associated with pain fired up. In addition, the mere memory of rejection also activates those neural circuits — a phenomenon that doesn’t occur when we remember physical pain. When study participants were asked to recall an experience of having been rejected, the same pain processing centers of the brain fired up, as shown by MRI.

If rejection causes actual pain, Eisenberger and her colleagues wondered if it could be treated in similar ways. In a follow-up experiment, they gave one group of participants Tylenol twice a day for three weeks and gave another group a placebo. Participants recorded their feelings in daily self-reports during the test period, and those taking Tylenol noted fewer feelings of rejection than did those taking a placebo. Their brains showed less activity in the pain centers as recorded by MRI.

Eisenberger and other researchers theorize emotional pain due to rejection is a holdover from evolution. Individuals, like most animals, have always depended on social relationships for safety and survival. Being cast out of one’s tribe left a hunter-gatherer vulnerable. Experiencing emotional pain came to serve as an alert that one was drifting from the tribe, a warning to do what was necessary to stay within the fold and survive. At all times in history, individuals have depended on others to meet their needs, and even today, those who lack a social safety net struggle for survival and those who lack adequate social connections experience depression and negative health outcomes.

Because the need to belong is fundamental and foundational to our existence and ability to thrive, it drives a great deal of our behavior. The need for inclusion is inextricably linked to many of our aspirations. We seek love and acceptance. We join clubs, teams, and fraternities. We network. But for many people, the family is the primal source of a sense of belonging.

Wanting to be received, valued, and accepted by our biological families is a natural desire driven by this universal need to belong. It’s little wonder, then, that meeting an immovable obstacle to the fulfillment of such a primal, fundamental need — being spurned by family, for example — may lead to especially acute feelings of rejection.

This vestige of evolution affects our neurobiology and can have a detrimental effect on our health. Just as physical injury results in inflammation, so too, it appears, do psychic injuries. Eisenberger and colleagues, studying neural sensitivity to social rejection, observed a significant rise in markers of inflammatory activity in response to exposure to laboratory-based social stressors. Their research suggests that social pain may make individuals more susceptible to the development of diseases to which inflammation contributes, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic pain, certain cancers, and Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.

Rejection has also been shown to increase such negative emotions as anger, sadness, and jealousy. It can result in aggression, lack of concentration, impaired decision-making ability, and diminished thinking performance. Social pain erodes self-esteem and self-perception, which can negatively affect other relationships. When we experience social pain, it seems we can’t think straight, and research has shown that, in fact, we can’t. Participants in a study at Case Western Reserve University demonstrated a significant drop in both IQ and the ability to reason after being subjected to rejection.

When rejection continues — as when, for example, months and years go by when you don’t get a response from biological family or you feel ostracized by your social family — your ability to recover from the emotional pain may diminish, and not only may you be at increased risk of illness, but you also may feel depressed, isolated, even helpless. And, counterintuitively, for some it results in an emotional numbness, as if the mind’s ability to cope simply shuts down.

Further, when we experience rejection we tend to blame ourselves, even when at some level we know we’ve done nothing wrong. Still, we take rejection as a personal failure and believe it’s a response to our behavior or to some inner flaw in our character. And while that may sometimes be true, in many cases — as when a birthparent refuses contact —it has nothing at all to do with who we are or how we behaved. Nonetheless, we may internalize it, which only intensifies the pain and depletes our ability to withstand it.

If this weren’t challenging enough, others may not offer the same empathy and compassion for your social pain as they would if you suffered from a broken leg, possibly leading you to feel still more isolated.

If this paints a grim picture, consider this. Understanding the very real nature of pain that results from rejection and the potential detrimental influence it may have on your health can motivate you to take steps to eliminate or minimize the pain, just as you would with the pain from a physical injury. It’s not necessary to live with acute pain from rejection. Look for articles coming soon on a variety of strategies, including self-compassion and mobilizing resilience, that can help soothe social pain.

By Cory GoodrichI look in the mirror now and I see the face I have always seen — same Disney princess eyes, same prominent nose. The hair color changes with my whim, but it’s still mine, straight, fine, and always out of control.

I look in the mirror, but now I also see someone else’s face staring back at me. His face. It unnerves me.

By the time I was born, my mother already had three children who looked strikingly like their father: blond and angular, small eyes, narrow nose. When I emerged, the doctor took one glance and said, “Well Ernie, you finally got one that looks like you!”

She repeated this over and over throughout my life: You look like your mother. She wanted that story etched deep in my brain so that when I questioned my dark hair, my unusual nose, or my short, curvy build so unlike my lanky siblings’, I would say, oh, that comes from Mama.

But it didn’t.

Those features came from my father. My real father. The man who was not the same father as the one my brothers and sister had. The truth was as plain as the nose on my face. Literally. My nose was the Garnett nose, not the Goodrich nose — and my mother knew it. In order to conceal that obvious truth, she built her own narrative so that when I questioned the differences I secretly suspected on a deep, unconscious level, she could repeat it as a mantra. You look like me, you look like me, you look like me.

I discovered the truth shortly after my fifty-first birthday. I was the result of an affair and everyone in my family knew that I was not really a Goodrich. Everyone but me.

And so now, when I stare at my face in the mirror, I see his features, not my mother’s, not even my own. I marvel that this newfound knowledge has the power to change my self-perception so entirely, even though I have been me for half a century. Why should learning that my father was not the man who raised me have the power to change how I see myself — to throw me into an identity crisis of epic proportions?

Damned if I know.

I look through my childhood photos, searching for clues, or maybe to try to find the person that I used to be, and I’m struck by how sad “little Cory” always appears. I think back to those formative years and I remember that ever-present sense of loss and sadness that I always felt but could never understand.

Children intuit things. They are so much more observant and aware than we give them credit for. There was a part of me that knew I was different from my siblings, but I didn’t understand why, and then I would feel guilty for even having those feelings. What was wrong with me that I couldn’t fit in? Why did I think of myself as an outsider? Why did I self-inflict so much of the blame for my parents’ eventual divorce?

Because I knew, deep down, that my very existence was the reason. Because children know.

I look at my childhood photos and I see the little girl that I was and I want to hug her. I want to comfort her and tell her, It’s not your fault.

I want to tell her that she feels different because she is different, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t belong.

I want to tell her she is a gift, a miracle, a blessing that came from the love between two people — and just because those two people didn’t end up living happily ever after together doesn’t change that. She is their happily ever after.

I want to hold her and say, You are not the cause of your parents’ divorce. They have their own lives to live, their own choices to make. This is not on you.

I’d tell her she will grow up to be an empathetic warrior chick who writes and sings and paints and acts and has two little girls of her own that she protects fiercely. She will be a good mother. I’d tell her: You are going to be okay. You are loved.

And then I realize, all these things I would gladly say to my childhood self my fractured adult self needs to hear too. Can I look at my reflection — at my Franken-Cory mixture of DNA — and give her the same compassion? Can I say those same words to myself?

This will become my mantra. It’s not your fault. You’re going to be okay. You are loved.— Cory Goodrich is an actress, singer-songwriter, painter, writer, autoharp player, and collector-of-weird-instruments who lives in the Chicagoland area. Check out her website, blog, and recordings at www.coryshouse.com and her paintings on Instagram@corygoodrich.Severance is not monetized—no subscriptions, no ads, no donations—therefore, all content is generously shared by the writers. If you have the resources and would like to help support the work, you can tip the writer.

On Venmo: @Cory-Goodrich

Look for more essays on various aspects of genetic identity here. Do you have a story to share? We want to hear from you. Find our submission guidelines here.

Advocacy Snapshot is an ongoing feature that highlights the views and efforts of individuals working to raise awareness, amplify voices, and stand for rights. Here, Courtney Tucker, founder of the U.S. Donor-Conceived Alliance (USDCA) weighs in.There have been individuals and small groups around the world working for donor conceived people’s rights for many years, but there’s an issue with visibility. Even now, having been in the community for more than a year, I struggle to fully grasp what has happened and what is happening. My hope with the U.S. Donor-Conceived Alliance is to provide a platform where information and resources can be gathered and voices may be elevated. I saw what the Donor Conceived Alliance of Canada and organizations in other countries were building and was shocked to learn that the same hadn’t been done in the U.S. My background is in non-profit marketing and management, so while my strengths may not align with filing lawsuits or contacting representatives, I would love for our organization to support those who do choose to take those types of actions.

In the U.S. specifically, I think one of our biggest hurdles is that many of the changes we hope to make need to happen at the state level. Even if you succeed at banning anonymity in one state, there’s nothing stopping anyone from driving over to the next (or even mail ordering!) for anonymous gametes. This has to be a coordinated effort. Adoptee advocates seem to be gaining traction in that regard, with many states making changes toward the opening of original birth certificate (OBC) records.Earlier this year, the USDCA polled 85 donor conceived people about where our priorities should lie. The vast majority would like to see an end to anonymity, caps on the number of offspring allowed per donor, better counseling for donors and commissioning parents, and stronger regulated record-keeping, including up-to-date family medical histories. There was slightly less emphasis placed on a central registry, such as Victoria, Australia’s Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority (VARTA), and ending payment for gamete donations (an issue Canada is currently battling).The USDCA is still in the very early stages, but you can fill out this form to register as an ally and join our mailing list. If you are not in the U.S., we have a list of other organizations around the world here.  On a local level, I highly recommend finding an adoptee support group to join. Of course, ask first to make sure groups are comfortable with a donor conceived person joining. I’ve made some very good friends in my group who right away said, “of course, you are half-adopted.” While our online communities are essential, it can also be very empowering to make “real life” connections.I think this depends on the individual. Working to create change can be cathartic, but I think it can also serve as a distraction — a means to avoid the real healing. And that’s okay. This process is an ebb and flow, and if distraction through action is what’s getting you through the days, go for it. We just need to stay mindful that when the flow pulls us away from advocacy, that’s okay too. Look out for each other, check in on occasion. Burnout is very common in both the non-profit world I come from and the advocacy world I’ve just dipped my toe into. I recently started reading “In it For the Long Haul: Overcoming Burnout and Passion Fatigue as Social Justice Change Agents“ by Dr. Kathy Obear. The first couple chapters really resonate with what I’ve personally experienced and witnessed in others. Go into advocacy because you feel passionate about advocacy — if healing happens along the way, that’s just a bonus.Courtney Tucker is a 30-something donor-conceived individual living in Arkansas with her cat and a large collection of cameras and vintage clothing. She works as the marketing coordinator of a major local non-profit and in her spare time leads the U.S. Donor-Conceived Alliance. She found her “donor” father and four half-siblings in 2018 and is always happy to show off photos of her new nieces and nephews!

Do your thoughts keep traveling on the same groove, driving you deeper and deeper in a rut? Maybe you can’t stop thinking about lies you’ve been told or wondering whether you’ll ever figure out where you came from. Or you can’t tear yourself away from the computer because the answer to your search and all your urgent questions may be just a few keystrokes away. Or worse, your thoughts become so oppressive that in order to blot them out you find yourself eating or drinking more, burning through cigarettes, relying on prescription or recreational drugs, or picking fights with those around you.

Although not always recognized as such, loss related to separation from family or discovery of misattributed parentage can be a form of trauma. And trauma, according to Sarah Bowen, a clinical psychologist and associate professor at Pacific University, plays a trick on your mind. It’s hard to find relief from it. “When anything traumatic has happened, whether it’s loss- or fear-based, you can’t get away from it. It’s in your face. If it’s fear, sadness, grief, whatever, it’s easy to go down rabbit holes.” But obsessive thinking locks you into feeling the feelings at the same time that it intensifies them.

It’s easy, Bowen says, to get caught in rumination cycles. While sometimes it’s helpful to think things through, often it’s the thinking through that causes intense distress. You get stuck in the same loops of thought, and catastrophizing and obsessing isn’t actually very useful. Those obtrusive and persistent emotions, she says, may manifest in many ways. “It might be engaging in ruminative thought patterns, picking up a drink, yelling at your partner, or eating, but the function is the same.” Those behaviors arise because you can’t handle what you’re feeling, so you engage in something that you think will make you feel less bad, she explains.

Urge surfing is a simple technique to allow you to slow down and acknowledge your feelings without acting on them. This evidence-based intervention was developed to help prevent addiction relapse by the late G. Alan Marlatt, PhD, who was director of addiction research at the University of Washington in Seattle. The concept came to him when he was trying to help someone stop smoking. It’s based on the understanding that urges — impulses to act in some way on negative feelings — rise like waves, getting bigger and bigger until one feels compelled to give in and indulge the urges. Trying to suppress these feelings tends to make them stronger and more insistent. Urge surfing helps individuals learn to ride out the wave without giving in and to understand that the urge is impermanent. Marlatt and his colleagues found the technique effective in addiction relapse prevention, but its applications go well beyond substance use and abuse. It’s simply a way of applying mindfulness to feelings that seem intolerable, says Bowen, who worked with Marlatt as a graduate student at the University of Washington.

The concept and practice are based in large part on Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction program. As defined by Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness is “paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, nonjudgmentally.” Learn more about mindfulness in this short video by Kabat-Zinn.

Urge surfing is not a way of solving or figuring out the problem. It’s about backing up and observing your feelings, says Bowen. It’s a way of asking, “What if I noticed what’s happening in my body, what my mind is doing now, instead of having panicked reactions?”

To ride the waves, you’ll learn to recognize when your thoughts and feelings are leading you to react in habitual, impulsive, and unproductive ways. Perhaps your urge is to log in to Ancestry.com constantly to see if you have new DNA matches. Of course, it’s helpful to monitor your matches, but checking 10 times a day can only increase your distress. Instead of flipping open your computer, sit quietly with your uncomfortable feelings without judgment. Acknowledge the thoughts that arise and the accompanying sensations and tensions in your body. Bring your attention to your breath as you follow the wave of the urge until it crests and subsides.

As with all mindfulness techniques, urge surfing requires a dedicated practice to strengthen your ability to react mindfully instead of in your default mode. Stopping and sitting with your feelings in this way each time they arise, combined with practicing mindfulness-based techniques on a regular basis each day when you’re not feeling the impulses, will make you better able to choose constructive responses.

Listen to Bowen guide you through an urge surfing exercise in this sound file.

It’s natural to have a powerful urge to escape feelings associated with or arising from trauma. Urge surfing, Bowen explains, is a way of learning to sit with the feelings and ride them out, learning to live with them without them overtaking your life. Through urge surfing you’ll be able to recognize that the feelings probably will come back, but you’ll become aware that you can feel things you don’t want to feel and still be okay.

Whether it’s through urge surfing or other practices, “mindfulness is useful in that it illuminates how our minds mean well but end up trapping us in cycles of anxiety, worry, and suffering,” says Nick Turner, a clinical social worker in the Clinical Road Home Program for Veterans and Families at Rush University Medical Center. “It provides us with a practice that accepts the mind as it is and allows us to be more present and effective.”

It’s often enough for individuals to break thought patterns and negative behaviors by developing a regular mindfulness practice — urge surfing or mindful meditation — but sometimes it may be beneficial to seek help. “If someone is to the point where they are obsessing about something and it’s decreasing their quality of life, working with a guide such as a therapist or teacher can be helpful.”

Look for more on mindfulness techniques coming soon in Severance.

Maybe you took a DNA test for fun and the results turned out to be anything but. You don’t recognize anyone in your match list or you find in your mailbox a “Hi, we’re siblings!” message when you thought you were an only child. Or perhaps someone let slip a family secret and now you suspect that you have no genetic connection to one or both of your parents. What should you do now? The simplest and yet most difficult way to regain your equilibrium after being blown away is to hit the pause button.It may feel as if your world has gone sideways. It wouldn’t be surprising if you can’t think straight and your mind is reeling; after all, this may be the most life-changing experience you’ll ever know. You may want to try to right your world immediately, but a better strategy is to acknowledge that you’ve had a significant shock and let it settle in a little before reacting. The initial revelation of family secrets may just be the first wave in a storm of shocks and struggles, so the way you respond early on may ease your way throughout your journey. Later you can think about your goals and explore how to move forward, but for now, take it slowly. (See the First Steps Guide from Right to Know below.)

Renowned neurologist and psychologist Viktor Frankl often is credited for a wise statement likely first made before he was born: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Take time to be still in that space. “It’s definitely a good idea to stop and take a breath,” says psychologist Greg Markway. “Part of your ‘story’ changes the moment you get this new information, but you don’t have any of the background information about the story.” Feeling a range of emotions, he says — upset, lost, angry — is normal. “Let yourself feel and accept the feelings.” Give yourself time, he advises, to explore the rest of your story and learn what the new information means.

“Don’t make any life-changing decisions,” advises Krista Driver, PhD, a licensed marriage and family therapist who’s also an NPE (non-parental event or not parent expected). “Don’t sell your home, divorce your mother, quit your job, or make any major changes.” In addition, she says, “Be selective in the people you tell; not everyone is worthy of your story.”If you haven’t already taken a DNA test, take one now to confirm any suspicions you may have. Use the strategy outlined here.Establishing equilibrium after a shock — whether that’s done by searching for biological family, reestablishing peaceful connections with your social family, or resolving that you may never have the answers you seek — is a marathon, not a sprint. It will take energy, stamina, and focus at the same time that it tries to drain you of all three.

It’s well known that in the wake of a shock, the body and mind can take a hit, so make a commitment to guarding your well-being by eating properly, getting enough sleep, and maintaining an exercise routine. And take steps to manage stress and anxiety. Devote some time to whatever you find relaxing — maybe listening to music, spending time in nature, reading, or visiting a museum. One of the best ways to defuse stress, however, is to practice mindfulness-based meditation.

“Mindfulness,” says Markway, “is the process where you focus your attention on the current moment. You also attend to your current thoughts and feelings — just noticing them — without trying to judge or change them.” Load your phone with any one of a number of mindfulness-based meditation apps such as Calm, Omvana, Headspace, or Insight Timer and pause for five or ten minutes twice a day and whenever you’re feeling anxious to slow your mind and still your thoughts. Taking care of yourself,” adds Markway, “helps you think more clearly.”

Another aspect of self-care is pausing for self-reflection. Driver suggests keeping a journal. “This may come in handy when you’re trying to piece it all together later. As people move through this process of discovery, memories will float back that provide confirmations, or they may recall conversations from childhood, and this medium documents the range of emotions that will come up during the journey.”You may feel powerless and alone. You are neither. Information and resources are empowering, and you’ll find those here in the magazine and in numerous references listed in our Resource sections. But before you explore them, make an effort to connect with others who’ve been where you are now. Your friends and family members, unless they’ve had a similar experience, may not be able to understand or relate to the feelings you’re having. Find a community of people who’ve also experienced this kind of shock,” says Driver, who recommends an online support group, or, if you’re lucky enough to live near one, an in-person group. “This helps people know they aren’t alone and provides a safe place to explore potential avenues to take.”

In addition, there are dozens of Facebook groups that may provide comfort. While not true support groups since they’re not moderated by trained professionals, these private groups offer comfort, peer support, and shared resources. Severance has its own group, Adoptees, NPEs, Donor Conceived & Other Genetic Identity Seekers, and there are many more devoted exclusively to adoptees, donor conceived people, NPEs, or late discovery adoptees. (See our Resources pages.)

As you seek support in these ways, ensure that you don’t lose touch with your real-world support group, take time to spend with friends, and engage in whatever activities you found enjoyable or rewarding before you made this life-changing discovery.All individuals perceive and react to trauma differently. There’s no right or wrong way. Almost everyone will feel knocked off balance by finding out that a branch of their family tree has fallen. Some manage to take it in stride, and others will feel overwhelmed, devastated. It’s not unusual in the immediate aftermath of a such a discovery to feel angry, sad, moody, and distracted. You might have difficulty concentrating or sleeping. These feelings are normal and likely will subside as you absorb the shock. But if they linger, cause you to engage in risky or troublesome behaviors, or interfere with your daily activities, consider seeking the help of a therapist, preferably one trained in issues related to family separation.BEFORE YOU GO…

• Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.
• Let us know what you want to see in Severance. Send a message to bkjax@icloud.com
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• If you’re an NPE, adoptee, or donor conceived person; a sibling of someone in one of these groups; or a helping professional (for example, a therapist or genetic genealogist) you’re welcome to join our private Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/402792990448461
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By Adrian JonesI share exactly 0.0% DNA with the people with whom I share a last name and my childhood. I don’t look like them. Never have. I have lived nearly five decades as an adoptee.

Regardless, my adoptive family is my family. They raised me and cared for me. They taught me important life lessons and good values to live by. I had plenty of opportunities to grow and little to want for. They provided me and my younger adopted sister a very good life and supported us during the difficult times.

For the most part, we were accepted as one of them across the many branches of the family tree. (There’s a small limb on my maternal side, however, that did not accept me and my sister). While I share a last name with my parents and am legally their child, there’s always been some part of me that feels like I’m not them. To be sure, I am a Jones and our family traditions will be carried forth by me and my children. The family tree will remain standing; I have no intention of cutting it down. There is no doubt about that. All the family histories and lore are as much a part of me as the clothes on my back. In a way they are what keeps us together.

My parents loved us with all their hearts, but there isn’t any amount of love that can fill all the holes created by one’s relinquishment and adoption. I have found it hard to shake the fact that, as an adoptee, I’m known throughout my family as that — an adoptee — someone who came from another genetic line, a limb cut from another tree and grafted onto theirs. When the Jones family gets together, I’m cognizant that they share DNA that I do not.

Three years ago, driven by medical necessity, I charged full steam ahead into finding my biological parents. I found them, still living, along with three half-sisters. They are lovely people who have welcomed and accepted me. Both parents had buried my existence into complete secrecy since the day of my birth, and outside of their respective spouses, no one in either family knew of me. Once I arrived on the scene, both parents came clean with their families, immediate and extended, and the cat was officially out of the bag. The relinquished child had returned.

I’ve been so welcomed that they’ve invited me to mini family reunions on both sides, and I’ve met uncles, aunts, and some first cousins. On the outside looking in, I think it would appear that our reunion story is that of a heartwarming Hallmark movie, and I think in many ways you could make that argument. All things considered, it’s gone very well and I am grateful for that.

These reunions, as with so much about adoption, are complicated. I’m surrounded by people with whom I share a large amount of genetic material and I can trace physical commonalities between us. I love this. By physical appearances alone, I feel at home. I belong. I am surrounded by my blood.

But commonalities end there. While we share genetic material, we do not share history, traditions, family lore. We are missing these things that serve as connective tissue. Stories roll off their tongues as they naturally do when families get together. I am a stranger to them. I feel like I could have been there for them if only people had made different decisions about me several decades ago. They wear their family’s history like a comfy pair of worn-in jeans, but these jeans do not fit me. In fact, I do not want to try them on. At times, it’s hard to hear their stories and memories. I wasn’t there for them. For any of it. Am I supposed to be excited to hear them? Am I supposed to adopt the stories as if they were mine? So far, I cannot. I’m an outsider looking in.

I love these people. I truly do. And our relationship is deepening into really meaningful places. As we unpack decades of separation and learn to move forward together, I’m hopeful that our collective future will bring beautiful experiences and memories. We’ll begin our own family history and lore with a rather unusual start date — one with much of our lives already behind us. I’m fully committed to building upon our relationships, but I know there is a moat between us created by time, separation, and life events.

When we get together with many members of the family and I look like others, it’s nearly impossible to not feel conspicuous. Why is this?

I’m the adoptee who showed up at the front door, pushing fifty years old, with decades of my life behind me, and behind them. How much of an outsider am I? What level of intrusion does my presence bring? They assure me there’s no intrusion, but I cannot help but feel it. In the presence of my own genes, I am an interloper.

Sometimes, when we are together with their extended family, I wonder if they collectively sing this song from “Sesame Street” in their heads, a song that haunted me in my youth.

One of us is not like the others

One of these things does not belong

Can you tell which thing is not like the others

By the time I finish my song?

— Adrian Jones, an advocate for adoptees and heart health, lives in Marin County, California with his wife and two children. Visit his blog, An Adoptee Shares His Story.

Look for more essays on various aspects of genetic identity here. Do you have a story to share? We want to hear from you. Find our submission guidelines here.

In 2014, I decided to do a 23andMe test to learn about my father’s family and feel closer to him. I had lost him to a heart attack in 1996, and his family had not been warm with me since his death. When the results came back, they showed none of the Russian and German heritage I expected from his family, but instead indicated I was 50% Scottish.Yes, this was not the first NPE revelation I had. To start, when I was born, my mother was married to her second husband. They were very unhappily married and she began a series of affairs. Because of her marriage and very Catholic parents, she created the ruse that I was the product of the marriage, so his name is on my birth certificate. I had weekly Saturday visits with him for 11 years, until mom disclosed he wasn’t my father and that my step-father since I was 2 years old was really my biological father. About 12 or 13 years ago, a DNA test proved my birth certificate father was not biological, and my step-father adopted me. I changed my name to Klugman and lived very happily with my step-father as my father all that time until his sudden death from a heart attack. I had never felt like I fit into my father’s side of the family: I shared no physical resemblance or mannerisms. I’d always felt like an outsider that they put up with. So in essence I was primed to deal with this issue already because of my early life story.Even though I had something similar in the past, I was still shocked. I had completely identified with my dad (step-dad), even though his family was clearly not having it. In film, there’s a shot in which the foreground and background move simultaneously, but the center image remains fixed, creating an illusion of surreality. That’s what I felt immediately and in spurts for months afterward — like aftershocks.I think my training did help. I specialize in trauma, so I was immediately aware of the effects of trauma on my functioning, and I got back into therapy with Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). I knew I was experiencing grief and had some compassion for myself.No. It was completely foreign until I hired a genealogist, Christina Bryan Fitzgibbons. Once she explained it, I learned this was a thing after all.I freaked out for a few months, but in the back of my mind I knew I needed answers. I asked my dad’s sister to test, assuming it would come back with no match, and I was right. Originally I had assumed it was the birth certificate father since he was of British ancestry, so I hired the genealogist only to confirm that. She knew immediately without doing any research that was wrong and found the real bio dad within two months.In hindsight I did, although I had no idea what that was until learning about NPEs. The crux of my professional focus in the NPE area has been the effect of surprise DNA revelations to identity. It’s a foundational issue that’s necessary to have us feel affiliation and value with our groups, tribes, communities.No. It was an easy choice for me, more like a compulsion. When I made the decision to go forward, it couldn’t happen fast enough.I turned to her right away because I did not believe I understood how to go about the search. Some people find everything themselves, but I don’t think it would have been that easy for me. I didn’t understand about centimorgans or how to triangulate relationships in family trees when they were distant. Christina knows all the intricacies and was able to find my biological dad based on his second cousin’s tree posted on Ancestry.com. That was not something I would have put together.Impatience, wonder, fear of rejection, anger.Once I had the initial meeting with my bio-dad, I was in the most indescribable turmoil that I can’t explain. I was uncomfortable in my own skin and I wanted to kill my mother (figuratively), but within a day or two, all the pain I had felt from my dad’s family not accepting me was fitting into place and sort of melted away. I had answers to lifelong issues that then made sense and I didn’t have to struggle with the pain of not knowing anymore. There was a sort of relief that allowed me to move on.Immediately upon identifying my bio dad, my husband challenged me to do something about this professionally. As a therapist, I’m very comfortable listening behind the scenes. I would never have put this out so publicly, but innately I knew I had to in order to heal. I was 100% correct.Because I’m an EMDR expert and have training in grief, I used those two pieces to formulate the bones of it. I’ve been doing research ever since, really focusing on identity. I’m developing a certificate curriculum to train clinicians for continuing education units (CEUs) on how to work with the NPE population since it’s a specialty approach.Identity is big, followed closely by connection in the form of support, acceptance, or lack thereof, namely rejection. Because of the nature of our conceptions, others (namely the mothers) feel they have ownership of the story and can control the dissemination of the information. Being seen and understood is a basic component of therapy and being a human being.Absolutely! In my blog I write about the seven key characteristics of NPEs I’ve discovered from collecting stories from clients, my podcast interviews, my own story, and those on the secret Facebook group for NPEs I’m part of. They include feeling a stranger within the family, discovery, grief, identity confusion, intuitive knowing, managing family relationships, and being in reunion with new family. Not every NPE experiences each characteristic in the same way, but there are unmistakable commonalities that thread them together.They’re almost the same, just the paths to get there veer off slightly. Usually adoptees discover their stories “when they’re old enough,” and NPE stories are often taken to the grave. There’s no right time to tell your child you’ve been lying to them about who their parent is. However, adoptive parents usually understand from the beginning they will have to tell their child their origin story at some point and just wait for that point to present itself. NPE mothers typically have no intention of ever telling, and until the advent of commercial DNA tests, there was no risk of people learning the truth.I don’t think they are that different. If you take Dani Shapiro’s latest book, “Inheritance,” she describes my story, but with one less father. She had no idea, like I had no idea. There are several ways to be an NPE — donor conceived, adoptions, surrogates, and others all technically are NPEs. The major difference besides their conception is in how the individuals find out.I offer a podcast, Sex, Lies & The Truth, for NPEs and their families to feel connected to a larger community and learn about aspects they felt alone with but can now relate to others, learning about themselves as they go. Same with my Finding Family blog on “Psychology Today,” where I write about the unique aspects of being an NPE, what I now call Parental Identity Discovery.™ I coined the term to be more inclusive of mothers who are unknown parents from adoptions, surrogates, etc. and will now use the term to title my certificate curriculum. I am a licensed marriage and family therapist and licensed professional counselor in California and see NPEs in person in my private practice or via tele-therapy throughout the state. I also offer virtual coaching for those living outside California, including a virtual support group for NPEs.

When it comes to DNA tests for finding family or confirming suspected relationships, the choices can be bewildering. As direct-to-consumer DNA testing has exploded in popularity, more companies are marketing tests, and each company offers different features. Those features can be very important once your results are in, but preferences about them shouldn’t form the basis of your initial choice of test. Your first objective should be to get your DNA in as many databases as possible to increase your likelihood of success.

There are three steps to getting started. Know what kind of test to take, choose which test to take first, and then make the most of the results.There are three types of DNA tests used for genealogical purposes. Autosomal DNA tests look at the DNA we inherit from each of our parents, which is recombined from generation to generation. A number of companies offer autosomal DNA testing, but for purposes of finding family, you need only pay attention to the big four: AncestryDNA, 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA (FDTNA), and MyHeritage. (If among your testing goals is learning more information about your health risks, only two of these companies’ autosomal tests provide information about health traits: 23andMe and, a newcomer as of this May, MyHeritage.

Autosomal DNA testing offers you a breakdown of your ethnic heritage, but more important, it provides you with matches to DNA relatives — the pieces you’ll need to put together the puzzle of your origins. If you’re lucky, when your results come in you’ll find at the top of your match list the parent or sibling for whom you’re searching. Once uncommon, it happens more and more as the databases grow. But it’s not the most likely scenario, so don’t be disheartened if you don’t immediately find a close family match. You can still learn to explore relationships among your closest matches, which will also yield pieces to the puzzle. (Look for more on that in future articles.)

There are two additional types of DNA tests for genealogical purposes, available only from FTDNA, both of which trace a direct line of your ancestry. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) traces the direct female line (from mother to mother to mother) and Y-DNA traces the father’s direct line. While mitochondrial testing is of little use to individuals trying to find close biological relatives, Y-DNA testing may have value. Because the Y chromosome is handed down intact and essentially unaltered from father to son generation after generation, and since men generally keep their father’s surnames, Y-DNA testing may help men discover their family names, which, when combined with genealogical research, may yield important clues. There are various levels of Y-DNA tests, each analyzing a different number of genetic markers, ranging from 37 to 700. Learn more about this here.You may be tempted to choose one test and call it a day. But it’s an approach that won’t help you if the person you’re looking for has tested at a different company. Consider these scenarios: You’re looking for your biological father. You test at AncestryDNA but get no parent match because he’s tested at 23andMe. Or your bio-dad hasn’t tested and you’ll need to rely on cousin matches to figure out his identity. One close cousin on your bio-dad’s paternal side has tested at MyHeritage, and another at FTDNA. You’ve tested at Ancestry, so you don’t know about either of those close cousins who could hold the key to the identity of your parent. It’s like waiting on the corner to meet someone only to find they’re on another corner.

One solution, if money isn’t an object and you’re very impatient for the broadest possible results, is to test immediately at all four of the leading companies. But for most people, there’s a better way to achieve the same results over an only slightly longer period of time. Most experts agree that all journeys begin with an AncestryDNA test, because with more than 15 million testers in Ancestry’s database, you’re casting the widest net in the biggest pool of testers. Your DNA will be tested against that of far more individuals than with any other test.

Purchase an AncestryDNA test and sign up at the same time for a free account that will allow you to begin to build trees. Later, in order to make the most of your matches’ trees, you’ll need to purchase a basic subscription to the service or use it at a local library. AncestryDNA tests go on sale frequently, typically before holidays, so if Thanksgiving, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, or St. Patrick’s Day isn’t far off, you can save a bit by waiting.You might be tempted to sit back and wait the six to eight weeks it takes for the results to roll in, but don’t. The wait can seem interminable, and being proactive will help keep you from chewing your nails and wondering if you’ll find what you’re looking for. Instead, roll up your sleeves and start to learn about how to make the most of your results once they’re available. Contrary to what DNA test commercials would have you believe, the test doesn’t do all the work. Unless you were blessed with a science brain, understanding DNA will be like learning a new language or taking up a musical instrument.

As mentioned previously, if close matches don’t appear right way, newcomers may become discouraged and think all they can do is wait and watch. But with some knowledge and, perhaps, sweat and tears, there’s a great deal that can be learned from second, third, and even fourth cousin matches. You’ll need to explore relationships among matches, often with no direct input from them. You’ll also need to create family trees based on those relationships, building and building the trees until patterns and connections emerge. Finding family can take time, and there’s definitely a learning curve, but the more knowledge you acquire about both DNA and genealogy while you’re waiting and afterward, the more successful your search is likely to be.

Ancestry Academy offers a collection of free tutorials, and you can search YouTube for helpful videos. Search in particular for videos by Ancestry’s Crista Cowan, known as the Barefoot Genealogist. Look for articles, blogs, books, and other tools that will help you get up to speed in our Resources section.

If you were adopted, other steps you can take while waiting include signing up at adoption reunion registries. Start with the International Soundex Reunion Registry and search online for state registries. And visit DNA Adoption, which has excellent resources and offers online classes about how to use DNA in a search.

In addition, if you do not live in one of the states that permit partial or full access to your adoption records (see a list here), you can contact your state or the agency that handled your adoption to request your non-identifying information.

In most cases you won’t have any information about the family you’re hoping to find, but if you do, begin creating a tree on Ancestry.com. And join the DNA Detectives Facebook group, which offers a wealth of information and support. You’ll learn from members who share their knowledge as well as from search assistants who can offer more advanced guidance and help. Another group, Search Squad, can help with search matters unrelated to DNA, and there are numerous other groups that can boost you farther up the learning curve, including DNA Newbie, DNA for the Donor Conceived, and more. In these groups you can ask questions and gain support as you see how others manage the stress of the search. When you join, be sure to look for posted files that often have valuable information.So that you don’t have to shell out cold cash to all the testing companies in order to find DNA matches in all possible pools, you can upload your Ancestry results (your raw DNA) for free to MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA, and Gedmatch Genesis — a database where individuals can compare results with those of others who’ve tested at various companies. Follow these five steps.

1. Download your raw DNA file from AncestryDNA using these instructions. Scroll down to “Requesting Your DNA Data.”
2. Transfer your raw DNA to Gedmatch Genesis. Register and then login. Be sure to read carefully the information about opting in or out of making your information available to law enforcement and consider researching the controversial issue carefully before you decide. Here’s how to upload your DNA.
3. Transfer your raw data to MyHeritage. The company offers a free transfer that allows you to receive all DNA matches and contact them, use the chromosome browser, and receive an ethnicity report, but you’ll need to pay a fee of $29 for additional features, such as the ability to view trees and share matches’ DNA. That fee is waived for MyHeritage subscribers.
4. Transfer your raw DNA to FamilyTreeDNA. You’ll receive free access to your DNA matches and the Family Finder Matrix, which allows you to compare relationships among 10 selected matches in a grid matrix. For an additional $19, you’ll get access to all features, including the chromosome browsers and ethnicity reports.
5. If the above steps haven’t yielded the information you seek, if you want to cover all bases, or if you also want access to information about health risks, test at 23andMe.

More than likely you’ve already experienced a shock of some sort, you suspect that a family relationship isn’t what you believed it to be, or you wish to confirm an unexpected relationship. But everyone considering taking a DNA test should be aware that test results can be a minefield of surprises — even beyond those you may already suspect. Consider carefully why you’re testing, what you hope to gain, and balance that against the risk of upset any further surprising information might bring, and try to have support in place should you receive troubling results.

Many consumers have questions about the privacy of genetic material they submit. Some are concerned as well about the growing practice of using DNA to help in criminal investigations. Carefully read each testing site’s terms of service before testing. If you have any lingering concerns, contact the company before sending in your sample. To learn more about best practices and guidelines when testing, visit Genetic Genealogy Standards.Look for more articles here soon on what else you can do when your test results come in, techniques for making the most of those results, and about professionals who may be able to help.

By Jim GrahamOn November 28, 1993, my wife, Melodie, dropped a bombshell. We were having dinner at the elegant Aqua restaurant in San Francisco, 2,200 miles from our home in Oyster Bay Cove, New York. “I’m going to tell you something you’ll find disturbing,” she said over cocktails. “John Graham was not your father. Your father was Father Thomas Sullivan, a Catholic priest.” I heard her statement as if it were a line in a novel, not part of a conversation between two ordinary people over dinner. She looked at me as though she feared my reaction, so I took her seriously. “When your mother left Buffalo with you as a toddler, the priest accompanied you,” she went on. “He was domiciled at Holy Angels Parrish in Buffalo. Private detectives were hired, and the three of you were located 10 months later.”That conversation ignited my 25-year journey for the truth — a truth kept from me for 48 years. My wife had no other details to offer. The information was given to her by an individual I thought was my cousin. As my story unfolded, I discovered I’m not related to the family in whose household I was raised, nor was I adopted by them. A scheme to hide my true origin was orchestrated by the church to save them from scandal during a conservative time in our history, post-World War II.

John Graham, the man I called Dad, died suddenly of a massive heart attack in 1979 at the age of 69. He divorced my mother in 1948, when I was just three, and never remarried. During my childhood, my mother lived in New York City, while I lived with John Graham and his family in Buffalo. The scheme was designed to make it appear as though I were the third child of John and Helen (O’Connell) Graham, when, in reality, I was the son of a priest. All the principals (Graham, my mother, and my father) died without having told me. The power the church exerted over these individuals as they took the secret to their graves is stunning.

I never would have known what I’m sharing now if it hadn’t been for an act of retribution toward me. Earlier in 1993, I had disparaged the name of John Graham in a conversation with a member of his family. Graham treated me poorly throughout my childhood, and as a result I left his household at age 18 in 1963. My comments circled back to Otto, Graham’s brother, whom I always thought was my uncle. In defense of his brother, Otto broke the church’s code of silence that others had honored for half a century. He had attempted to hurt me, but in retrospect, I see he gave me a gift. The reason for the dysfunction I experienced as a child had become clear.

I sensed uncovering the coverup wouldn’t be easy. The first place I looked for answers was with the Graham family. I met with Otto and his sister Kathryn, whom I had believed to be my aunt. The church likely advised them how to deal with me at the meeting as they attempted to put the toothpaste back in the tube. Kathryn uttered a well-rehearsed talking point as she slid a newspaper obituary across the kitchen table and said, “This man may be your father, but only the principals know, and they are dead.” Although the man in the photo was much older than I was, his eyes, nose, lips, and chin were startlingly familiar. Otto and Kathryn offered no further information.

The more I was denied my history, the more adamant I became about claiming it. I eventually knocked on the doors of my father’s order, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

A priest I encountered, Father Savage, a contemporary of my father, said, “Whatever we discuss in this room will stay in this room.”

“Then you know,” I said.

“Yes, I know.”

“How do you know?”

“You look just like him!” he admitted.

My wife, who attended this meeting, winced at Father Savage’s closing statement: “Forget the injustices of the past. You are relatively young and you have good genes, so get on with the rest of your life.” This cruel comment — his way of saying “get on your way and don’t come back” — only fueled my desire to know more.

It was inconceivable to me that the church denied my mother and me our basic human rights. They took me from her when I was a toddler and ensured I would never know my father. We were pawns in their self-serving, scandal-saving plot and were swept under the rug. Following the revelation, I had a new purpose in life: to expose the power and corruption of the institution that trampled on our lives.

For years, I followed the paper trail, collecting a treasure trove of documents. I interviewed numerous priests, nuns, and laity on my journey. Those who knew my father were stunned by my likeness to their old friend. I witnessed a thread of fear running throughout members of the church, each afraid to be known as the whistle-blower. Even today, a 100-year-old nun who told me much about my history wishes to remain anonymous, fearing she’ll discredit her order. I’ve twice written the superior general of the order, domiciled in Rome, offering him the opportunity as a leader of the church to do the right thing — to be transparent. The responses were terse, likely drafted by a canon lawyer: “We have no records of Father T.S. Sullivan fathering a child.”

On January 8, 2018, I had a phone conversation with the provincial of the USA Oblate Order, Fr. Louis Studer. Like Father Savage, he was not pastoral. He badgered me over and over during our call, repeating, “You think you’re Father Sullivan’s son, but you can’t prove it.” Years ago, I‘d thought about asking permission to exhume Thomas Sullivan’s body to prove he was my father, but I quickly dismissed the thought, assuming the Oblate Order would have thought I was grandstanding. Plus, I knew it wouldn’t allow it anyway. But after staring down the church for 25 years, and following my heated phone conversation with Fr. Studer, I wrote to the provincial requesting an exhumation. To my surprise, two weeks later, my request was granted, provided the exhumation would be at my expense and there would be no photos or filming and no press on the Tewksbury, Massachusetts cemetery grounds. To this day, I don’t believe the church thought I would go through with it.

On June 18, 2018, the day after Father’s Day, I had my father’s body exhumed for a DNA comparison. The results came back 99.999% positive that Father Thomas Sullivan was my father. Not surprisingly, I have not heard from the Oblate hierarchy since. What could they say to a man who looks like Father Sullivan and who spent 25 years knocking on their door? What could they say after an exhumation when we both knew what the results would be?

To my knowledge, I’m the only son of a priest in the world to have had his father’s remains exhumed to prove paternity.— Jim Graham, who lives with his wife, Melodie, in Seneca, South Carolina, is writing a memoir about his quest to find the truth. Follow his story on Twitter @jim_jimgraham45 and https://www.facebook.com/jim.graham.7739814 and listen to him discuss his journey on “Family Secrets with Dani Shapiro.” Access the episode at https://www.familysecretspodcast.com/podcasts/the-very-image.htm

Look for more essays on various aspects of genetic identity here. Do you have a story to share? We want to hear from you. Find our submission guidelines here.

Most podcasts in existence today owe a debt to “This American Life,” a public radio program and podcast aired weekly, each week’s episode a selection of stories on particular theme. On the air for more than two decades, it’s a stellar model of narrative journalism, created, produced, and hosted by Ira Glass and about everything and anything, from national politics to the smallest of stories about people you’ve never heard of.

The theme of a 2005 show was “Go Ask Your Father,” stories about children who find out something they’ve always wanted to know about their fathers — although not necessarily something they ultimately want to know. In each case, the subjects confront (or wish they could confront) a parent about a nagging concern. In a heartbreaking prologue, we hear from a child named Aric Knuth, whose father, a Merchant Marine, was gone from his life for six months at a time in Aric’s youth. Over the years, the boy records audiotapes, sends them to his absent father, and pleads for tapes to be returned in kind. He’s shattered when all he gets in return is radio silence.

It’s Glass’s way of jumpstarting the conversations with a provocative dilemma — one that’s likely to resonate with anyone who’s been hurt or lied to by their parents. “I know this is the saddest tape in the world that we’re starting the show with this week, and I’m just doing it so I can talk about this choice,” he says. “As adults, we have this funny choice. Are we going to sit down with our parents and talk about the stuff that hurt us and didn’t make sense to us when we were kids? And it’s hard to know if it’s worth it sometimes, if it’s just going to make your parents feel bad. And what are they going to say, anyway?” No spoilers here about Knuth’s conclusion, but he raises an intriguing question that might cause listeners to think differently about dissatisfying heart-to-hearts with parents about events that happened long in the past.

In the next story, Glass turns his attention to a man whose question for his father is one many of us have asked: are you really my father? In the episode, “Make Him Say Uncle,” Glass talks to Lennard Davis, a professor in the English Department in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois in Chicago, about his quest to determine whether his father really was his father. It’s a story Davis later explored in his 2009 memoir, “Go Ask Your Father.”

In his signature style, Glass lets you in on the story from the beginning, with the tale told as if it’s unfolding as you listen. It’s set in motion in 1981 by a bizarre phone conversation between Davis and his Uncle Abie, a man his father warned him all his life not to emulate. Whatever Abie did — deeds as simple as reading in bed — Davis was instructed not to do. Whoever Abie was, Davis was urged not to be. The message was clear: Uncle Abie was the black sheep of the family and everything he did was bad or wrong. Davis’ father encouraged his son to be like him and more like his brother in all the ways Davis felt different from both of them.

When Davis was 31, his mother had already died and his father was hospitalized with cancer. Uncle Abie showed up and said he had a secret to tell him, but he couldn’t reveal it until his father died. After his father’s death, when Abie called to discuss furniture that belonged to his brother, Davis reminded him about the secret, and his uncle tried to evade the question. But Davis pressed him. “I kind of nudged him and finally he said, OK, I’ll tell you the secret. And I said, what is it? And he said, I’m your father. And there was just this — this was just completely out of the blue. There was no clues in my upbringing. There was nothing. And my father had just died, and I’m in the process of mourning him and thinking about my connection to him.”

Abie then told a story Davis found preposterous: Abie’s brother — Davis’ father — came to him with a jar and told him he needed semen. Abie went in the bathroom and returned with the semen. Then Abie added a wrinkle: the semen was mixed with semen from Davis’ father. “I was in a complete, total state of shock,” said Davis. “And I just thought, wow, whose movie am I in? The whole thing was completely bizarre.” Surely, he thought, artificial insemination hadn’t been performed as early as 1949, and if it had been, they couldn’t possibly have mixed the semen. But his research told him it had been, and they did. Glass describes the mixing of sperm as being like a firing squad in reverse, where “each person would choose to believe they weren’t the one who hit the prisoner. And in this, everybody would choose to believe they were the one.”

After his father’s funeral, Davis confronted his cousin, Abie’s son, and told him the strange story. His cousin both startled and relieved Davis when he revealed that Abie had been delusional at the time, had even been committed to an institution because he’d been hearing voices. Given this new information, and influenced by his wife’s encouragement, Davis set aside the whole matter and got on with his life, until 15 years later, when it began to preoccupy him. He talked again to his cousin, who admitted that he’d lied all those years earlier — that his father told him the same story when he was very young.

Glass and Davis explore the feelings this strange story evokes — Davis’ recollections of never feeling as if he belonged in his family, his thoughts about the possibility his father isn’t his father and the dreaded Abie might be, and about who he hopes his father will turn out to be. The conversation is raw and moving, with painful pauses and tense moments of suspense — as when, for example, Davis opens an envelope from a DNA lab that contains the answer to his questions — that leave you guessing, along with Davis and Glass, about what will be discovered.

It’s a fascinating conversation about what it means to be family, about how we respond to family secrets and reckon with shifting identities. It reveals how individuals can respond to these questions and revelations in ways that seem universal and in others that are unique and surprising.

The show’s entire archive is available on iOS and Android and at the show’s website. Tune in to find out what was in the letter from the DNA lab.

If you’ve only recently learned that the mother or father you grew up with isn’t your genetic parent, there’s a good chance you don’t know anyone who’s had a similar experience. You may feel bewildered and alone. Unfortunately, the bewilderment may last a bit as you adjust to a significant shift in your understanding of your world and your place in it. But you needn’t ever feel alone.

Facebook is home to numerous peer support groups made up of people who know what you’re going through — those who understand and can empathize. In most cases, these groups are private, so you can feel comfortable disclosing the raw feelings and sensitive thoughts you’re not prepared or willing to share with others. These groups can be havens for people who feel isolated, marginalized, or stigmatized and they give voice to people who have felt silenced or unheard. They offer 24/7 access to someone who will listen to your story or respond to your questions. You’ll find camaraderie, encouragement, resources, and stories that likely will resonate.

If you need to learn more about DNA and how to use it to find family, there’s a group for that. If you want to connect with people who are adopted, donor-conceived, or NPEs (non-parental events or not parent expected), you’ll find more than a few useful groups.

While sitting face-to-face in a true support group moderated by a helping professional might be ideal, such groups are few and far between. When in-person support groups aren’t available to you, the next best thing is a virtual peer group. The goal of these groups is to create a safe space in which you can express anything you need to get off your chest, relatively free of judgment, criticism, or recrimination. (Relatively because . . . well . . . people are people and every so often we speak without thinking.) In private groups, nothing you contribute or receive from the members goes beyond the groups. Because they’re secret or closed, only you can see them in your Facebook feed, and when you post, none of your contacts outside of the group can see what you post.Peer support offers numerous benefits. Research has shown it may boost self-esteem and confidence, help improve mood, and increase coping abilities. Reading others’ stories may make you feel less adrift and more connected to people who get you, which can be especially important when those close to you may not understand or know how to help. Finding your feelings mirrored in others’ can be comforting and stabilizing — helping you realize it’s the situation you’re in that’s crazy, not you. In addition, those who’ve been on the same path a little longer than you may have developed practical resources and coping strategies that will give you new perspective, and you’ll see that many of those farther out on the journey you’re just beginning may deliver the hopeful message that that healing and coping are possible.

And while listening and learning is most helpful for some, having a place to express themselves, even just to vent and blow off steam, is most valuable to others. For many, the greatest benefit comes from providing comfort and support, because helping others is a way of moving forward and making meaning.

For Cassandra Adams, 36, who learned just before her 35^th birthday that she was donor conceived, Facebook groups have been a lifeline. Especially helpful for her have been We Are Donor Conceived and DNA NPE Friends, along with a smaller group specifically for people like her who’ve just discovered a Jewish heritage. She’s also found participation in groups related to activism regarding donor conception to be empowering. “There are groups where we discuss issues surrounding donor conception with prospective parents and small groups where donor conceived people can safely vent and strategize our activism goals.”

“Fellow members,” Adams says, “have been the only ones who can truly understand the thoughts and feelings I have about this area of my life,” an area she feels has enveloped her life. It’s in these groups, she says, that strangers become more than confidants. “We’ve found ourselves disconnected from biological family, and our conversations with one another, regardless of the physical distance between us, starts with the most intimate details of our existence at the very beginning.” In the groups, she adds, are shared “all of our darkest secrets, from before we were even conceived. And with that kind of comfort level, I have to say that many of my closest friends at this point are people I have only come to know in the last 20 months of my life.”

Facebook groups, linking strangers in this way across the miles, create a sense of kinship. “Organizing community has been important to me when I feel we as NPEs or donor conceived people are already suffering from that emotional detachment from our families of origin and our friends,” says Adams. “All of us have unique issues to work on, for which having a variety of groups has been invaluable.”While groups offer many benefits, it’s also important to recognize their limitations. Unless it’s run by a trained professional, a Facebook group “should never be perceived as a ‘support group,’ as the moderators are not licensed or clinically trained,” says Krista Driver, PhD, a licensed marriage and family therapist and CEO of Mariposa Women & Family Center in Southern California. “With a public forum like Facebook, everyone has the ability to offer advice, ideas, opinions, and they’re not always clinically sound or beneficial.”

Beth Kane, a New Jersey clinical social worker, agrees. Support groups, she acknowledges, are wonderful resources, but should be facilitated by a professional or at least someone who has been extensively trained in whatever the topic is. That’s not to say she doesn’t see the value in Facebook groups, but she offers this caveat. “Peer support can’t be under-rated, and I think it’s a huge help to people, but when you’re dealing with high-level emotional stuff, it’s even easier for people to be led astray, though not maliciously, which could complicate things for them even further. There’s tremendous value in peer support and not feeling so alone, but when advice is given to someone who’s really struggling, it can be a bit of a slippery slope.” Everyone’s experience is unique, and different things work for different people, she says. “In addition, well-meaning people may also invalidate how someone is feeling. For each person in the group, there’s going to be a different perspective, which can be tremendously helpful and also not so much.”

So keep in mind being adopted, an NPE, or donor-conceived doesn’t necessarily make someone an expert on the subject, but only an expert on their own experience. They may have no more wisdom than you do. Still, there’s much you might gain from listening to their stories and hearing about what’s worked for them. But think carefully before taking advice, particularly when it comes to emotional, legal, and family matters. Listen to what others have been through and assess it critically in light of your own situation and needs. If you require advice about sensitive matters, especially behavioral health concerns, seek credentialed experts who have experience with related issues.

Another concern about groups is privacy. When choosing a group, pay attention to the level of privacy it offers. Anyone can see the membership of public groups and the posts of members. Closed groups are private, meaning while they can be searched for and found on the Internet to allow new members to join, members’ names and posts cannot be seen by anyone outside the group. Secret groups add an extra layer of privacy and cannot be found on the Internet.

While members of private and secret groups are prohibited from sharing group content outside the group and must pledge to maintain members’ privacy, on very rare occasions breaches have happened. As with all online activities, it might be prudent for users to be careful not to post personal information such as home addresses, phone numbers, or medical information. Be careful, too, when posting not to reveal private information about others, and be sure that when you post, you are in fact posting to the group and not to your own personal Facebook page.Following is a small sampling of the many peer groups available on Facebook.

This magazine has its own private group for anyone who’s discovered that, as a result of any circumstance, they’re not genetically related to the families they grew up in. Relatives and allies are welcome. In addition, there are multiple groups with a narrower focus, targeted specifically, for example, to NPEs, adoptees, late-discovery adoptees in particular, or donor conceived individuals. Some have strict membership criteria and others may allow family members and allies. Others offer support and practical assistance to those who are searching for family.

DNA, Genetic Genealogy, and Search Sites

A closed group for anyone using DNA to find biological family, DNA Detectives, created by CeCe Moore, has been responsible for countless reunions. Help comes not only from DNA Detectives’ team of administrators and search experts, but also from its nearly 115,000 members. It’s an essential resource for beginners who want to understand their DNA results and learn how to use them to find family.

DD Social, a closed subgroup of DNA Detectives, is a place for social interaction and support concerning DNA testing, genealogy, and the search for unknown parents.

Search Squad is a free locator group for adoptees, birth parents and family, and genealogy.

Groups for NPEs

Begun in 2017, DNA NPE Friends is a secret group open to NPEs and offering emotional support and encouragement. Its founder, Catherine St Clair, has been featured frequently in the media, drawing attention to the experience of NPEs and driving the group’s membership toward 6,000 individuals. There are numerous special interest groups under the banner of NPE Friends as well, including those for mothers of NPEs and for individuals affected by another’s NPE. The community also has a group for adoptees, regardless of whether they are NPEs. When one member was struggling with the newfound knowledge that her dad wasn’t her biological father, a friend told her she’d read an article about DNA NPE Friends. “I looked into it because I thought I was all alone with my struggles,” she says. “When I became a member, my heart grew by leaps and bounds.” To keep DNA NPE Friends secret and unsearchable yet allow people who need it to find it, St Clair created a closed searchable group, membership in which leads to membership in the private group. Join by contacting the DNA NPE Gateway.

Other groups for NPEs include NPE Only: After the Discovery and Severance’s group, Adoptees, NPEs, Donor Conceived and Other Genetic Identity Seekers. 

Groups for Adoptees

The Adoptee Support Group is open to adoptees, biological parents, and anyone searching for biological family, and the Adult Forum for Late-Discovery Adoptees’ membership is limited to late-discovery adoptees. There are a number of groups devoted to the needs of transracial adoptees, including TAP 101 for Adult Transracial Adoptees. The Adoption Reunion Search and Support Group is for those interested in finding family and navigating reunions. Adoptees Only: Found/Reunion The Next Chapter is for adoptees in any stage of reunion.

Groups about Donor Conception

We Are Donor Conceived, with more than 1,000 members worldwide, is a companion group to an organization of the same name. It’s a place where donor conceived individuals can connect and share as well as find original content from the organization’s website. According to its founder, Erin Jackson, “frequent topics include how to reach out to newly discovered relatives, how to respond to friends and family members who aren’t supportive or understanding, and advocacy efforts.” In addition, she says, members often post photos of their meetings with donor conceived siblings and biological parents. Members frequently express gratitude for the group, Jackson says, “often because their partners, friends, or close family members do not understand their feelings and can’t be supportive of their desire to meet and develop relationships with donor siblings or their genetic mothers or fathers.”

DNA for the Donor Conceived, from the DNA Detectives, is a closed group in which donor-conceived individuals can find help and support when searching for biological family members. It’s for donor conceived offspring, siblings, and parents (sperm, egg, embryo) and for anyone considering donor conception.

To find other groups, enter a subject in the search bar on Facebook or check our Resources pages.