May, 2024 - Severance Magazine

By Lezlee Lijenberg

Dear Friend,

We may or may not have ever met but we remain kin. We may not share DNA but we are kin in the sense of sharing a common bond in the discoveries of our histories—the profound feelings of having lost a part of ourselves when we learned our father was not our father, perhaps we were told of a different birthmother or half-sibling popped up on our 23andMe family tree.

We are more alike than you think. We have been lied to and deceived by people that in most cases we held dear and loved unconditionally. These are the same people that pulled the rug out from under us when confronted with the revelations. Some of them denied us of the truth, while others were angry and resentful that the secrets had been revealed. Our stories follow a long gamut of possibilities and outcomes, but we remain in the same family of broken hearts.

In the beginning, many of us do not know where to turn or what to do. Our commonalities grow as we try to determine how to handle the situation. So many questions. How do we address it? How to share the information we learned weighs heavily on our hearts. At times fear takes hold and at other moments anger, tears and confusion replace the ecstatic joy of knowing that craziness did not win.

I do not take our relationship lightly. In fact, it is probably the most serious connection I could ever experience. It is irreplaceable because it is not a relationship of choice but one of necessity and survival. It is a bond created by decisions out of our control. Our relatives will never understand what has evolved between us because whether they want to believe it or not, they connected us without even realizing it.

People want to be a part of something. They want to be included and accepted. We are no different yet, as NPEs, we are facing situations of rejection and inclusion all in the same breath by people that have always been a part of our lives and by complete strangers. This is not a club membership we aspired to being a part of throughout the years. It is not a group anticipated to be an answer to hold us up when we are down, to pick us up when we falter or to celebrate with us when another cog in the wheel falls into place.

It is a club of united human beings coming together to share our experiences and through the accumulation of stories we help one another heal. Today I reach out my hand to you. Let’s embrace the moment because it can pass all too soon. For the moments of hurt shift and then, when we least expect it, return again. We have a sense of false security when we think we have a handle on all of the secrets. Then in a flash, the past hits us fully in the face and a new and strange feeling must be contended with one more time. Each feeling is different, and it appears there are no right or wrong answers. All we seem to have is ourselves to face the consequences and the results of the actions of the past.

However, I am here to tell you my friend, you are not alone, and you never have to choose a path of exclusion. You have thousands of NPE family members just like me that are here for you. We are a shoulder to lean on and a heart to listen. Most of us are willing and able to stand by you until the storms subside. We remain a life raft in the turbulent waves of your discovery and if you are drowning we will row you to shore.

With love and the heart of a lioness,

Lezlee

Lezlee Liljenberg is an award-winning business owner, entrepreneur, and author on a mission to help others in the discovery of their true identities, their biological families, and dealing with DNA surprises. Previously, she was a successful commercial real estate broker, and in 2004 she started her own insurance agency, which she sold 18 years later and formed Liljenberg Insurance Expert Witness, where she’s a consultant and expert witness for insurance cases. Liljenberg holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism/public relations and a master’s degree in political science/public administration from the University of Texas at Arlington. She’s written numerous articles and two books, including If You Only Knew: Navigating DNA Surprises and the NPE World.

Follow her blog and stay in touch at www.iamlezlee.com. She’d love to hear your story and for you to become part of her family.

By David B. Bohl, MA Being adopted is one of those complicated gifts that just keeps on giving whether you like it or not. I am calling it a “gift” because I like to put a positive spin on things and because it has enriched my life—in relationships, in personal discoveries—once I understood how to deal with all the adversity/trauma attached to it. Once I knew how to navigate my own feelings about it all, it became easier to see it as something that made my life that much bigger, now that I was no longer letting it destroy me, as when I used drinking to cope with my inability to fit in. But recently the gift reared its head again. What happened is that I experienced something called a misattributed parentage event (MPE), which became an unexpected twist in my journey of self-discovery, one that I thought I had already come to terms with. An MPE—most often discovered as a result of DNA testing—describes a situation in which the person one believes to be one’s biological parent is not in fact biologically related. This can result from adoption, sperm donation/IVF, an affair, rape, or incest. For obvious reasons, learning about an MPE is often a traumatic experience. As an adoptee, I’ve always known that my biological roots were a mystery waiting to be unraveled. However, I thought I knew all there was to know and nothing could have prepared me for the revelation that the man I thought was my paternal genetic grandfather was not biologically related to me or my father. My half brother and I stumbled upon this truth through genetic DNA testing, a tool we initially used out of curiosity, but one that ultimately led us down a path of unexpected revelations. At first, the finding felt surreal, almost as if I were living in a plot twist from a novel rather than my own life. Because I had always known that I was adopted, the idea of surprises regarding my genetic lineage was not entirely foreign to me—and yet this revelation still managed to shake the foundation of my understanding of family and identity. I didn’t know this grandfather (nor will I ever know the other one) but I couldn’t help but wonder what that was like for my biological father and if he was affected in any way. Was he treated well by the man he called “father” or was he perhaps neglected? Could that explain why he was unable to show up for me? Or was it his mother who only knew the truth and was perhaps deeply affected by it? The possibilities were endless, and I’ve found myself trying to guess something that was impossible to guess as it’s been the case with most of my biological story. The one thing I did know for sure was that this was a new reality that I had to grapple with in my own time and at my own pace. One of the most challenging aspects of this discovery was navigating the implications for my family members, particularly my father’s living sisters. As I shared this newfound truth with them, I could observe the mixture of shock and confusion they displayed. This revelation changed not just my understanding of lineage, but also theirs, highlighting the interconnectedness of our family narratives. While we were all supportive and understanding of each other, I could sense the weight of this revelation as we collectively processed what it meant for our family dynamic. Click on image to read more.

May 2024

Love Letter to Fellow NPEs

A Gift That Just Won’t Stop Giving