Learning about family secrets that fracture your sense of identity can be profoundly shocking and destabilizing. If you’ve experienced a powerful emotional blow that’s left you feeling bruised, battered, and off balance, though you may not recognize it as such, what you’re experiencing is trauma. If you’ve been told or you suspect you’re overacting, be assured that feeling traumatized is a completely normal response to an exceedingly distressing event. While many around you may not understand or take seriously your feelings and expect you to brush it off and get over it—trauma isn’t something you just get over. It needs to be acknowledged and addressed, and it may be useful or even necessary to seek professional help that will allow you to move forward with less distress and integrate the experience into your life

Jamie Marich, PhD, a clinical trauma specialist, talks with us about recognizing trauma, understanding its consequences, and helpful strategies. She’s founder of the Institute for Creative Mindfulness and the author of seven books on trauma healing and recovery. Among the approaches she uses with clients are EMDR therapy, mindfulness, yoga, dance, reiki, and expressive arts. She’s led trauma recovery retreats at the Kripalu School for Yoga & Health in Massachusetts’ Berkshire Mountains and at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. Her most recent book, published this year, is Process Not Perfection: Expressive Arts Solutions for Trauma Recovery.Trauma comes from the Greek word meaning wound, and in its most general sense, trauma means any unhealed wound. These wounds can be physical, emotional, social, sexual, spiritual. So yes, the revelations of these secrets can certainly be wounding to the individual hearing them, and if they do not receive the proper support and/or treatment to heal the wound, the impact can fester. We are increasingly understanding that trauma is a subjective experience, so what may be traumatic or a shock on the system to one person may be rather innocuous to another person. So it’s important that we validate the individual’s experience of the wounding and address accordingly.I don’t use the term shock as much as I use the word trauma, and yes, it’s plentiful. Just take a look at the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE Study) which is popular for the most cursory example of this.The symptoms can manifest differently for different folks. You may notice that your emotions are clouding your intellectual abilities, which can make it hard to focus at work, school, in life. You may notice extreme displays of emotion, like tears you feel will never stop, or, on the other end of the spectrum, a sense of emotional shutdown and numbness. Sometimes people go into high alert over what else could happen and may have a hard time falling asleep. Some people may sleep excessively. Dissociation or feeling checked out or otherwise “zoned out” can also be a part of this phenomenon.Fun fact: Rollo May published this and is generally credited with the teaching, not Viktor Frankl, although Frankl was May’s friend and contemporary. Most people recognize the Viktor Frankl name and connection more.

Anything that helps you to expand that space is always a good idea. For many it’s taking one breath or several, for others it’s taking a walk, exercising, making art, or engaging in other practices that help them be more mindful and manage stress. Mindfulness practice expands the space of which May and Frankl speak. Embodied practices can also do the same thing for people. Sometimes, though, the impact of unhealed trauma/stress can make it difficult to even access the practices, which is where professional therapeutic interventions may be needed and can help.Yes is the short answer. As long as the practices are taught in a way that meets the person where they are and do not become one more way that the person beats up on themselves. For instance, some perfectionists feel they have to do meditation “perfectly” and this defeats the purpose.Attending to the wounding (trauma) that can result from shocking family information is similar to what is needed after any physical injury—care. The best care is holistic—attending to all aspects of self. In addition to some of the emotional first aid that we discussed previously, getting enough rest, drinking enough water, eating well, and steering clear of numbing activities like drinking alcohol/doing drugs is advised. While these numbing strategies may help short-term, they can complicate the healing process in the long run.It totally depends on the person and the nature of the relationships they have with friends and family. If friends are healthy and supportive, absolutely. If the family members involved in the family secrets do not feel safe, at least in the short term, it may be appropriate to take some time and space away from them while the person heals themselves—even if their intention long-term is to heal the family relationship.In addition to what I said earlier, I always encourage people with a strong network of friends to consider what the term ‘family of choice” means to them. For many people with toxic or strained family relationships, it may become more helpful to lean in to those friends who have more adaptive/healthy qualities that they wish of their family.Professional therapy with someone who understands trauma and the dynamics of development, betrayal, and family dynamics could be extremely helpful. Don’t be afraid to ask questions of potential providers beforehand. Some people also find learning something new, even if this is taking up new hobby, as a constructive way to be open to new things—which can be a useful adjunct in the healing process.

When you have tried everything that seems healthy outside of therapy to cope and move through the information and you are still feeling stuck in life; although as a therapist I feel that professional therapy can always be appropriate during times of adjustment and transition. [Editor’s note: Not all practitioners are equipped to help clients with trauma, and not all therapeutic approaches are effective. As Marich advised, look for a therapist with extensive training and specialization in trauma.]Learn more about Marich, her books, online courses, and resources at her website and at The Institute for Creative Mindfulness. And look for videos on her online resources portal that teach content in an accessible style. 

Look  for more articles about aspects of trauma and various therapeutic approaches upcoming in Severance.

It’s surely not hyperbole to say that “A Broken Tree: How DNA Exposed a Family’s Secrets”—a new book by Stephen F. Anderson—is the mother of all NPE (not parent expected) stories. It’s hard to imagine a more epic or stranger-than-fiction tale of misattributed parentage than this.

Anderson stared down a series of family mysteries and over decades employed DNA and oral history in an attempt to solve them. He describes his family of nine children as nothing like the “Leave it to Beaver” family he grew up watching on television. He knew his was different, but it took decades to learn just how different.

Because his mother, Linda, had little interest in settling down to raise kids and clean houses, and his father, Mark, a fire truck salesman, was on the road a great deal of the time, his older sisters took on much of the burden of caring for the younger children. There were rumors and whispers among the siblings of family secrets, but they were too disjointed and fragmentary to be understood. He turned to the person he most expected to have answers, but was rebuffed. He visited his oldest sister, Holly, to record stories about the family, and she refused to share a single recollection. Both intrigued and disturbed, he pressed her to reveal what she knew, but she was determined to say nothing until both of their parents had died. Her refusal only deepened his resolve to learn more.

Anderson learned to eavesdrop, and “parked” himself so he could hear what his aunts and older siblings were talking about. It was clear the family was hiding something, but the substance of the secrets remained a mystery. When Mark died, Stephen tried once again to nudge Holly into coming clean, but she was steadfast. She wouldn’t discuss anything until their mother was gone. His hopes of unraveling the mysteries were dashed when Holly died a few months before their mother did and took the secrets to her grave.

With Holly’s death, Anderson says, they lost a part of their family history, and he double-downed on his desire to know more. What he couldn’t have known as he resolved to get to the source of the rumors and whispers, however, was just how many family secrets he’d uncover or how twisted and tangled they were.

If anyone was well-equipped to sleuth a family mystery, it was Anderson. His avocation as a family historian, education in family and community history and library science, and his long career working in one of the leading genealogy companies—Family Search, International—gave him tools and knowledge others might not have had. Still, it was a challenge even to find the puzzle pieces let alone figure out how to put them together. And none of his education or work experience prepared him for the shock and emotional upheaval he experienced after he ultimately uncovered the truth.

Anderson and his brother Tim suspected that one of their siblings was an NPE. Their suspicions arose before autosomal DNA testing had become available, but they found an ally in an employee of private laboratory that offered other forms of DNA testing. In an effort to create a baseline—a genetic standard against which to measure the family relationships—they determined to get DNA samples from their parents. Their father died before they were able to accomplish their mission, but with help from a funeral director, they obtained a hair sample and were able to have it analyzed. Their mother provided a sample without hesitation. Anderson had no doubt that he was Mark’s son or that he and Tim were full brothers. They looked alike and both, especially Tim, looked like their dad. Still, he wanted to learn about his risks for hereditary diseases that ran in Mark’s family, so he submitted a sample of his own DNA.

When the results came in weeks later, Anderson recalls, his world was turned upside in one phone call. The good news was that he had no markers for the stomach cancer and diabetes he worried about developing. The bad news was that Mark was not his biological father. “Science and technology had stripped me of whatever sense of identity I thought I had,” he recalls. “I had no clue who I was.” He felt sucker punched. He couldn’t breathe and thought he might vomit. He was overwhelmed by feelings of rage, contempt for his mother, and the sense of having been betrayed. “It felt like my whole world was coming down around me,” he writes. He thought about having worried for so many years about the wrong hereditary diseases, all his genealogical research on a family to which he was no longer tethered, the way his father might react, and who his biological father might be.

Anderson couldn’t accept the results, and at the suggestion of the DNA lab, he gathered the hair chamber of his deceased father’s electric razor and had the shavings tested. He was gutted when the test results duplicated those of the initial test. He describes himself as having been on an emotional rollercoaster, but he soon found he was only at the beginning of the ride. To avoid a full-blown spoiler, let’s just say that Anderson wasn’t the only NPE in the family and that over time he was able to get to the bottom of most of the whispers and rumors he’d heard his whole life.

Don’t expect a literary memoir from “A Broken Tree.” It doesn’t boast an artful narrative structure or strive for deep character reflection and analysis. The author doesn’t aspire to crafting elegant prose or stringing graceful sentences. The text suffers in spots from repetition, and you may find it difficult at points to locate events in time and place. And yet it’s a compelling and extraordinary story of genetic disconnect, a page-turner in many spots. Readers are likely to be enthralled by the author’s experience and amazed—even inspired—by his determination to lay bare his family’s truth and his persistence. The book reads as testimony, and those who have had their own DNA surprises will nod in recognition, commiserating with the author at the same time that he validates their feelings about their experiences.