By Andromeda Romano-LaxThe gossip reaches me on New Year’s Eve, two days after my birthday—worth mentioning only because birthdays often put me in a reflective state that can easily turn to melancholy, and this year is no different. I’m in Mexico City, on vacation, about to go to dinner with my husband, mood beginning to lift. Then I receive the email from my sister.

It reads: “Considering that Mom could pass any day, I thought I should tell you a.s.a.p. in case you don’t know about it, which I assume you don’t.”

The news she shares is second-hand gossip from an old family “friend” who showed up to visit my mother—then dying of brain cancer—to reminisce, burn private letters and relive the good old days. The friend, who played little part in any of our lives for decades, revealed to another family member that my father wasn’t really my father. That person told the sister who emailed me. Now I’m the last in the four-person chain to find out.

As for my mom: she’s not talking, and never will, which isn’t surprising given her love of secrets and lifelong fear of being judged for parenting errors. Her fears are valid. I do judge her, most of all for not keeping my sisters safe when we were all younger.

Before leaving our hotel room to go to dinner, I reply to my sister: “That’s a big surprise! How lucky I don’t feel especially attached to ‘Dad’ or his side of the family or it could be upsetting.”

I take pride in my stoic response and the fact that I severed relations years ago with our late father—an undeniably “bad man.” But that stoicism is really only disorientation. I have no idea, at this time, that my identity and much of what I’d thought about both my parents will have to be recalibrated.

I never would have imagined that my mom, a self-identified, non-practicing Catholic with an affinity for the Virgin Mary, probably had multiple affairs when she was still married to her first husband, who came from a large Sicilian-Polish family. But there was a lot about our family I never suspected until each bomb dropped: for example, when, at age 14, I learned that my two older sisters, then 16 and 19, had been molested for years by the sweet-tempered, funny and charming man we called “Dad.”

The truth came out in jarring bursts. I remember a confusing scene in our living room when my sisters, in some argument with my mother, summoned the courage or rage to tell her what had happened to them. I can’t recall any words from my mom’s side, only my oldest sister’s repeating howls: “Oh no, oh no, oh no.” Until that point, she’d thought she was the only one. The knowledge that she hadn’t managed to stop the predator she knew well from seeking a second, even weaker prey—our middle sister—shattered her.

I remember a second confusing scene later that year, when our middle sister was locked in a downstairs bathroom. Her boyfriend called to tell me I needed to break down the door. Inside, she was trying to take her life. The boyfriend—bless his bravery and candor—told me why. It was Dad, again. I don’t know who made the 911 call. I do know I found my sister’s unconscious body. While everyone else converged at the hospital, I was left home alone to clean up the blood.

My parents divorced when I was three. The last time I saw my dad I was fourteen. I have no memory of him ever touching me. I find it incredible, even now, to think about the lengths he went to abuse my sisters—using not only emotional manipulation but also drugs and travel across international borders to conceal what he was doing. In other words, he was not only giving in briefly to unhealthy urges—as if that isn’t bad enough. He planned his molestation. He took steps to avoid prosecution.

After connecting the dots between his strategic, predatory behavior and my sisters’ exceptionally difficult teen years, I refused to see our father again, and he made no effort to ask why I’d stopped calling or hadn’t attended his father’s funeral. I think he felt a cold wind blowing. I think he knew there was at least one person—and maybe more—who had seen under his mask. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he retired to Mexico not too many years later. He died when I was in my late thirties.

And now, in my mid-forties, I’m being told that he wasn’t my biological father after all.

***

After the surprise settles and the DNA swab test results are returned, I look for the silver lining. He was a sick, morally bankrupt person. Isn’t it better to think I share no genes with him or any of his ancestors? Not that I believe pedophilia or an inclination to abuse is passed along genetically. No doubt his actions were a result of his environment. I have every reason to suspect my grandfather sexually abused his own daughters (my father’s sisters) as well. It’s even possible that my father was himself abused. Perhaps—the thought evolves in my mind as time passes—it was even condoned.

“Better to keep it in the family,” is the horrible phrase that comes to mind.

For a long time, I’m tempted to blame heritage, poverty, or lack of education for the practices that seemed accepted—though never openly talked about—in my father’s family. Even now I can cite recent news from Italy, where in some parts of the country, incest and sexual abuse are condoned. (In Italy, incest is illegal only if it “provokes scandal,” which sounds terrible, until you consider that in Spain, France and Portugal, it isn’t illegal, period.)

But any quick survey, like easy finger-pointing at priests or coaches or other groups, overlooks the fact that sexual abuse is discouragingly common everywhere. Writes Mia Fontaine in a story called “America has an incest problem” in The Atlantic, “One in three-to-four girls, and one in five-to-seven boys are sexually abused before they turn 18, an overwhelming incidence of which happens within the family.” Those figures are underestimates, due to underreporting.

If incest was preferable in my father’s family to affairs with grown women or molestation of children outside the family, then I have one answer to the question of why a non-biological child would be left alone. But did my father know I wasn’t his child? He never deprived me of appropriate affection. I felt loved, even when, at the age of 13, I cut off my hair and went through a punk phase that would last years.

Maybe that punk phase and my insistence on androgyny—or my manner, a “don’t FUCK with me” vibe that I mastered well before I had any reason to suspect my father of being a child molester, was one reason I was left alone, completely apart from blood relations. That’s what I would have said, as a young adult.

It’s comforting to think we have agency. It’s even more reassuring to think we can fashion the right armor for ourselves, and that perhaps some of us know, subconsciously, that such armor is needed. But it would be dangerous—as well as self-serving—to assume that one can so easily guarantee one’s own safety by acting or dressing a certain way. Life teaches us otherwise.

There are other possibilities, like birth order or simple opportunity, to explain why I wasn’t violated—or not violated yet—in the time before I broke off contact. (And note: I made that choice at the age of 14. My mother registered no opinion or even said a negative word about my father, as I can recall—clinging to her belief that it’s better not to judge people. She was frighteningly consistent, if nothing else.)

In any case, I was lucky—at least once, and maybe twice. Lucky because I was left untouched. Lucky again, because I was, and still am, free to imagine my biological father was a better person than the first man my mother married.

*

After my DNA surprise, a cousin reaches out and offers to help find my bio-dad. I’m reluctant. My own family history has convinced me to beware fathers, generally. There’s a good chance I’ll leave one “Dad” behind only to find a new one with his own character flaws or criminal background—someone who might want to take advantage of me. Even as an adult, I feel emotionally vulnerable.

My “amateur detective” cousin keeps sending messages—she enjoys these kinds of searches and excels at them—and I finally relent. Less than a month later, she introduces me to the identity of my bio-dad. His photo and other details provided by his living siblings leave no doubt. I experience the shock of seeing my own features, as well as that of my adult son, in the face of a stranger. I experience the double-shock of realizing this matters to me, when I thought it wouldn’t. I can’t stop clicking on the digital photos sent to me of his face at three ages—young boy, adolescent, twenty-something man—and finding them both familiar and somehow comforting.

More details emerge. My biological father is no longer alive, having died in an accident just a week before my birth. His long-ago passing was both tragic—not only for him and his family but probably for my late mother, who must have spent that final week of pregnancy in deep grief. But in a strange way, in addition to sadness and belated sympathy, I feel relief. I have nothing to fear from this new biological relative. I can accept without wariness or doubt the good details I hear: that he was a kind brother, for example.

Even with a new father to think about, I spend more time mulling the old one—trying to find consolation in knowing that we aren’t related. Given the frequency of DNA surprises, how many people are at first relieved to discover they aren’t related to a parent who was a murderer, or carrying some heritable disease, or simply unlucky in life? Especially if we are the children of someone who did something heinous, the ground shifts. We struggle to regain our footing, hoping to land in a better spot than we were before.

And yet, that’s not the whole story, either. As the news continues to sink in over the next year, I realize I’ve lost a lot. Anyone who has experienced a DNA-testing surprise may understand. Now, my sisters are only half-sisters, and my mother has been proven to be not only a person who hid the truth, but someone who wouldn’t relent even when asked directly, smiling in response to my sister’s questions. If she’d become upset, I would have sympathized. But a Cheshire-cat smile, tickled by the power of what she had to withhold? That’s harder to forgive.

My already-small extended family is further diminished. I can no long claim the great grandparents—one of them, a polyglot—on my father’s side. When my mother and aunt die in the same year, I’m without older relatives altogether, aside from my sisters. The family tree I thought I knew, already pruned by divorce, has been hacked to pieces and carted away.

I lose any sense of connectedness with living cousins—people I barely knew anyway, because we all mostly stopped talking when I stopped seeing my father. He refused to explain why we weren’t in contact, leaving them to assume that he was the puzzled victim of some conflict initiated by me and my sisters. Now, through social media, a few of my cousins send tactful messages, saying I’m still “family.” It doesn’t feel that way to me, especially given how little we all interacted for decades, but I am grateful for their kindness.

The biggest loss—and the one I’ve least anticipated—is how deeply sorry I am to have lost my Italian-American heritage. For most of my life, I’ve looked in the mirror and imagined that my calves were Roman calves, my nose an Italian nose, my stature and dark coloring and love of wine and Italian food all explicable, and meaningful, because it connected me to a rich heritage. By the time I find out Dad isn’t my bio-dad, I’ve traveled to Italy twice—the second time to write a novel set there.

Now, that novel and all the emotions attached to it seem distant. But another fictional representation of my family angst takes its place.

This month will mark the publication of the most personal novel I’ve ever written, called Annie and the Wolves. It’s the story of a modern-day historian who finds her life intertwined with that of her subject, Annie Oakley. In both historical and modern storylines, characters struggle to recover from abuse. As it happens, one of America’s great icons, an 1800s sharpshooter who took the world by storm, she was molested too—in this case, by a farm family called “the Wolves” who held her captive when she was between the ages of ten to twelve.

It doesn’t take a psychologist to imagine why I was drawn to that plot.

In my novel, which takes place across a century, characters struggle to remember, to uncover dark family secrets and deal with vengeful desires—all in the hopes of finding a way forward.

My own path includes exactly this: finding a way, through both fiction and nonfiction, to deal with my family’s legacy and my own confused feelings. I’ve been liberated from one connection. But in another way, I feel more chained to my father and his story than ever—unable to shake them off. You’ll notice I still choose to call him “Dad” and “my father.” It’s a choice I’ve made only recently, in part to be more honest with the influence he had on me, from birth at least until age fourteen. Biology isn’t everything. I’ve spent time thinking about his upbringing, wondering why he did what he did and what he, himself, may have suffered.

The man I grew up loving was almost certainly a victim who passed along his damage to others, repeating what was done to him. He wasn’t really a monster, of course. But he was a predator—someone who hunted his prey with cunning.

Regardless of any blood connection, he’s a wolf I’ve had to confront—one who still prowls the dark corners of my mind.Andromeda Romano-Lax is the author of Annie and the Wolves (Soho, Feb. 2, 2021) as well as four other novels. She lives in British Columbia, Canada. You can visit her website and find her on Instagram.

Libby Copeland is an award-winning journalist, former Washington Post staff author and editor, and author of The Lost Family: How DNA Testing is Upending Who We Are, published in March 2020 by Abrams Press.How long did you spend researching and writing The Lost Family?

Altogether, about three years. I first wrote about Alice Collins Plebuch’s fascinating genetic detective story in The Washington Post in early 2017. The response to that story, which was hundreds of emails from other consumers sharing intimate and moving DNA testing stories, convinced me the topic needed to be a book, and I started researching for the proposal soon afterward. But the bulk of the work was done during 2018 and 2019. In The Lost Family, I revisit Alice’s story and tell it much more fully. I was able to travel to Washington State and spend time with her, as well as do historical research going back a hundred years to illuminate her family’s astonishing story. And as I follow her story, I also tell many other tales from people I Interviewed—wrenching, moving stories of how this technology is changing how we see ourselves and how we talk to one another, not to mention how we think about truth and the past.

What so intrigued you initially that you were willing to devote so much time and attention to this issue? Did you realize early on how complex the subject would be?

I was really intrigued by the idea that questions about genetic origins and family could lead individuals, families, and the culture at large to deep explorations of essential human questions about identity, what makes a family, and how we define ethnicity. The science was indeed quite complex, and so were the experiences of people affected by this technology. I got to interview a lot of genetic genealogists about their techniques and the history of the field, and to tour a DNA testing lab and speak with a number of scientists and historians about human genetics and autosomal DNA testing. But really, it was the deeply human stories that moved me most. The emails from readers and the stories I heard from other people I interviewed sometimes moved me to tears. There were stories of adoptees searching for family, of donor-conceived individuals defining and building relationships with half-siblings and donor fathers, of people discovering NPEs and struggling to incorporate that news with everything they’d known before. I was really interested in the idea that this technology was touching the most intimate parts of people’s lives and changing them forever. I was intrigued, too, by the idea that the past is not really over. It’s still very present in people’s lives, and DNA testing—and all that it can uncover—is prompting people to reassess what they thought they knew about things that happened 50, 60, 70 years ago.

Of all the seekers you spoke with, what story touched you most?

There are so many stories! It’s hard to pick one. There’s a very moving story in the book about a foundling who was left on a doorstep in the 1960s and adopted. Years later, she went looking for her biological family in order to know where she’d come from and to understand the context for having been given up. Her name is Jacqui. The genetic genealogist CeCe Moore helped Jacqui and suggested I interview her because she thought Jacqui’s story was so poignant and because she wanted people to see the range of ways that DNA testing stories can play out. Jacqui’s story is reflective of the fact that, as one mental health counselor put it to me, reunions aren’t always “happy” ones, even though those tend to be predominant in news stories.

Jacqui’s sisters on both sides have largely declined to have relationships with her; one set of sisters even decided they don’t believe that she’s their relative, despite clear evidence from DNA results. There are certainly happy reunion stories, and I write about a number of them in the book. But Jacqui’s story is equally important for people to read because she expresses her desire for connection with her siblings in a heartfelt, evocative, and relatable way. And yet, her truth is so threatening to her siblings that they decline and even deny the connection. There’s no easy solution to this kind of problem, and the complexity of it—and the way genetic relations who are essentially strangers can feel themselves to have hugely different interests from one another—illustrates how much we need to grapple with the legacy of what DNA testing is uncovering. I would argue there needs to be vastly better support for the millions of Americans trying to navigate these situations.

As you talk to people about DNA testing (consumers and potential consumers) what have you found to be most misunderstood?

I think if it hasn’t happened to you, it can be difficult to understand just how disorienting it is to discover that your own genetic origins are not what you long believed. From my interviews with people over months and sometimes years, I’ve come to understand that these revelations are not rapidly processed and incorporated into a person’s reality; indeed, the process of understanding a profound surprise go on for years, perhaps for a lifetime. A DNA surprise can pose questions about a consumer’s relationship with her parents, her understanding of her childhood, her sense of where she belongs, and her orientation on the world. These revelations can be traumatic, even if people are ultimately glad to know the truth about themselves. Those two things—experiencing pain as a result of a revelation yet not wishing to un-know it—might appear to be in conflict with one another, but they’re not.

On the other hand, the perspectives of those being sought out—I refer to them as “seekees”—are not told nearly as much, and are not as well understood. Those who don’t want contact with genetic kin and don’t want these revelations uncovered are much less likely to want to tell their stories. There can be happy reunions between parents and children or between siblings, but sometimes there’s a painful clash of interests. A seeker approaching her genetic father may be seen as threatening by that father, or by that father’s wife, or by the children he raised. There may be shame, guilt, and embarrassment on the part of the genetic father or mother. The decision not to have a relationship with a child or to even speak about having had a child may have been made fifty, sixty years ago, in far different and perhaps desperate circumstances. These are such sad and difficult situations for everyone. In a perfect world, there would be family mediators to help with those initial conversations, and mental health counselors to help everyone—those discovering family secrets, and the keepers of those family secrets. I am heartened to see a growing community of mental health professionals specializing in DNA surprises.

See our review of The Lost Family.BEFORE YOU GO…

Look on our home page for more articles about the search and reunion, NPEs, adoptees, and genetic genealogy.

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By B.K. JacksonIf keeping a secret—or being a secret—feels detrimental to your physical or mental health, it’s not your imagination. The expression “toxic secrets” is neither hyperbole nor a figure of speech. Researchers increasingly are learning that secrets place a profound burden on mental and physical health.

It appears it’s neither the secret itself nor the act of concealing it in social situations that contributes to the burden, but rather it’s the psychic energy secrecy requires. It’s a pain that plays out in private. Researchers at Columbia University who have been studying the effect of secrets found that the degree to which secrets affect well-being is related to the frequency with which the mind wanders to them, suggesting that it’s the ruminating about secrets that’s damaging. This was true regardless of the significance or importance of the secret. Any secret that’s preoccupying—frequently turned over and over in the mind—researchers discovered, diminishes wellbeing. In other words, it’s not keeping secrets that hurts, according to Michael Slepian, PHD, lead researcher of the Columbia studies, “it’s having them.”

And what most causes people to obsess about their secrets? In a study called “Shame, Guilt, and Secrets on the Mind,” published in the journal Emotion, Slepian* and his colleagues surveyed 1,000 participants about feelings of shame and guilt associated with their secrets. They also asked survey respondents how often they thought about and concealed their secrets each day in the prior month. Perhaps surprisingly, study participants spent less time concealing than they did dwelling on their secrets, and it was shame rather than guilt that caused the greatest amount of daydreaming about secrets.

When it comes to family secrets brought to light by DNA testing, there may be shame on both sides of the equation—on the secret keeper and the secret discoverer. And the secret discoverer often is pressed to become a secret keeper. NPEs who have uncovered family secrets through DNA tests frequently feel consumed and shamed by those secrets, making them particularly vulnerable to the ill-effects of secrecy. Many of us have been asked, or feel obligated, to keep secrets surrounding our conception. In most cases, those who ask us to keep secrets do so out of shame about actions they took many years ago and fear that exposure of those actions will deepen their shame and bring it into the light. And those who feel obligated not to expose another’s shame often have been made to feel shame themselves. Further, feelings of worthlessness, smallness, and powerlessness and a history of a traumatic experience, say researchers, make people more likely to feel shame. It’s a perfect storm for NPEs, pointing to the need to address the harm that may be associated with secrecy.

“It hurts to keep secrets,” Slepian writes in Scientific American. “Secrecy is associated with lower-well-being, worse heath, and less satisfying relationships. Research has linked secrecy to increased anxiety, depression, symptoms of poor health, and even the more rapid progression of disease,” he continues. In addition, attention to one’s secret can cause diminished attention where it’s needed, such as on one’s work tasks, resulting in reduced efficiency and performance. And a study by Ahmet Uysal and Qian Lu found that self-concealment is associated with chronic and acute pain.

It’s not surprising, Slepian concludes, that it’s exhausting to maintain secrecy. He and his colleagues looked at the way in which secrets are experienced as physical burdens and how that affect perception of physical tasks. They found that people preoccupied with secrets feel as if they’re being weighed down. They perceive hills to be higher and distances to be longer than they are. In another study, his team looked at the link between secrets and fatigue. “Thinking of one’s secrecy serves as a reminder that the secret conflicts with one’s social goals, highlights one’s social isolation with regard to the secret, and results in an unpleasant subjective experience of fatigue,” they concluded. “Thus, secrecy—the commitment to conceal information from others—can be fatiguing even during moments when one is not engaging in active concealment.” Much of that fatigue, they found, was linked with social isolation.

And ruminating about secrets, Slepian adds, providers a constant reminder of one’s complicity in secrecy, causing the secret holder to feel disingenuous, inauthentic, and socially isolated.

It’s probably safe to say there’s a cost both to keeping and revealing secrets. When pondering whether to keep a secret concerning your origins, a strong argument is that it’s your story to tell. Keeping it to yourself not only prevents you from feeling authentically yourself, but also may diminish your self-esteem. Living inauthentically is associated with reduced life satisfaction. A second compelling argument is that not telling may be damaging to your health. Relieving yourself of the burden of the secret is likely to cause you to ruminate on it less, thus relieving the strain.

If you’re weighing whether to reveal a secret or are debating with yourself about whether you’re entitled to reveal it, it’s important to consider the effect it’s having on your physical and emotional health. But while sharing one’s secrets may be a boon to mental and physical well-being, it’s also necessary to be mindful of, and work to mitigate, the potential damage revelation of secrets can cause. It requires planning and sensitivity to avoid rupturing relationships—a consequence that can have still further repercussions to your mental and physical health—and you might benefit from the help of a counselor before broadly revealing your secret.

In a future article, we’ll look at experts’ advice about deciding when and how to reveal secrets and strategies for reducing harm. In the meantime, however, consider that even disclosing to one trusted individual may relieve you of the burden of your secret, according to Slepian’s research. “Confiding a secret,” he explained in Scientific American, “can feel cathartic and relieving. But mere catharsis is not enough. When confiding a secret, what is actually helpful is the conversation that follows. People report that when sharing a secret with another person, they often receive emotional support, useful guidance, and helpful advice.” It just takes that one conversation, he insists, to ease your mind. Consider first the consequences of sharing to even one person, and if you do share, be sure it’s to someone you believe will be discreet, understanding, and supportive.

Writing on MentalHelp.net, Allan Schwartz, PhD, LCSW, says, “I’ve always maintained that there are few secrets that are so dangerous that they cannot stand being brought out into the open, where they suddenly lose the evil and dark air that once surrounded them.”

*Learn more about research by Slepian and his colleagues at www.keepingsecrets.org. Take a brief survey in order to access the research.

Read more about secrets here.

By B.K. JacksonThe 1953 discovery of DNA’s double helix and the 2003 completion of the Human Genome Project not only have transformed medicine but also have led to the advent of direct-to-consumer DNA testing, an unforeseen consequence of which has been that many people who test unearth long-buried family secrets.

I’m one of them. When I was an infant, my parents divorced and my mother disappeared without a trace, so I’m well acquainted with the yearning for an unknown parent. I felt abandoned anew when, 50 years later, a test revealed that I’ve never known either of my genetic parents—that my father wasn’t my father. At the same time, I discovered I’m Italian, not Russian; my family was Catholic, not Jewish; and my fear of the cancers rampant in my father’s family was unfounded.

My story—at least the second chapter—isn’t unique. A 2019 PEW Research Center survey found that 27% of home DNA test users discover unknown close relatives. Of these, those whose tests reveal misattributed parentage are known as NPEs—a name referring to the circumstances of conception—a non-paternity event or not-parent-expected.

These surprising results and their ripple effects illustrate what Libby Copeland, in her new book on the subject, The Lost Family, calls the “profound and disruptive power of DNA testing.”

Devastated to learn they have no genetic connection to their kin, many NPEs, like adoptees, become desperate to identify and contact their biological families. Some are welcomed into the fold, while others are ignored or spurned. Some, shockingly, are rejected even by the families in which they were raised.

This NPE experience, often hidden in the dark and shrouded in silence, must be brought into the light and made the subject of conversation. Why is this important? Because we can extrapolate from adoption research that identity confusion, stress, and rejection can render NPEs, like adoptees, vulnerable to potentially severe emotional turmoil and increased risks for depression, addiction, and other behavioral health issues. Discussion will bring much-needed attention to the dearth of resources and trained professionals needed to help them cope. And further, because with greater public awareness of the emotional impact, families—rather than close the door on NPEs—might be better able to respond empathetically and, thus, mitigate trauma.

When we receive unexpected DNA results, boughs of our family trees break. Our heritage evaporates. We’re not who we thought we were and we don’t know where we come from. We grieve for the families we may never know, yet this grief goes unacknowledged, as if it isn’t legitimate.

Like adoptees, we may suffer from genealogical bewilderment, a condition described in 1952 by psychiatrist E. Wellish as the alienation resulting from being disconnected from biological relatives. A relationship to one’s genealogy, he said, is “an inalienable and entitled right of every person.” The right to know one’s parents is also recognized as fundamental by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. 

And yet, about our new DNA status we’re routinely asked: What difference does it make?

That roughly 30 million people have taken DNA tests to discover their heritage and millions more are obsessed with genealogy is proof that people care—deeply—about where they come from. If blood ties didn’t matter, parents would take home a random infant from the nursery; instead they choose the newborn who carries their genes. But NPEs are expected not to care about DNA.

Adding to the trauma of shattered identity may be the pain of rejection. Because most NPEs are born of affairs or donor conceptions, when they reach out to biological family members they may expose long-guarded secrets and repressed shame. Fathers may reject their offspring for fear they’ll expose their infidelities or donor status, and siblings may want nothing to do with children conceived under these circumstances. But NPEs didn’t choose how they came into the world.

It’s true that people on the other end of this experience—those approached out of the blue by strangers—may also feel blindsided. It’s understandable, but is it an excuse to deprive people of their birthright?

It raises a fundamental question about whose rights are paramount and what responsibilities come with creating a human being. Are individuals entitled to secrecy when secret keeping affects the wellbeing of others and denies their truth? When paternity is established at birth, fathers are morally and legally responsible for their children; to reject such responsibility is actionable and considered contemptible. But the passage of time gives men a pass to pretend their children don’t exist.

Before DNA tests became available, I discovered and was welcomed by six brothers and sisters—my mother’s children. When later, through a DNA test, I discovered I was an NPE, it took an agonizing 18 months to discover who my biological father was and learn he’d been survived by a son. I wrote to this half-brother, asking only if he’d share a photograph of our father, tell me about him, and advise me about any preventable risks for heritable diseases. This is all most NPEs want.

To some degree, I understand my brother’s disinterest and failure to reply. Unlike me, he had nothing at stake. Yet I wonder what it would have cost him to respond—how he could have been unmoved by my request. I find it hard to believe a grown man might be so disturbed by his father’s unfaithfulness that he’d reject a sister. Perhaps, like many, he erroneously believes DNA results are unreliable. But the science behind DNA testing is unassailable. And since I enclosed a photograph of myself, he couldn’t have failed to see an unmistakable resemblance. I know that likeness exists because I was lucky enough to find cousins willing to give me what my brother would not. Their eager embrace and kindliness were healing and lifechanging. Thanks to them, I saw a photograph of my father—my own face looking back at me. These cousins could have shut the door on me; instead they gave me the gift of my own truth.

It’s possible that the ball on what Copeland calls “the roulette wheel of some unexpected revelation” may land on you or someone close to you. If an unknown relative contacts you or your family, consider that if you’ve seen your father’s face, you can’t imagine what it means to her to never have had that opportunity. Consider, too, that she’s not responsible for the circumstances of her conception and is without shame or blame. Ask yourself, if the tables were turned, wouldn’t you feel as if you’d been sucker-punched? If you learned you had a father whose name and face you didn’t know, wouldn’t you want to find him? If your religion was no longer your religion and your ethnicity no longer what you believed it to be, wouldn’t you feel adrift? If happened to you, wouldn’t you hope your biological family would respond with empathy and grace?

This isn’t to say you owe her a relationship. But the only decent, compassionate response is to acknowledge your genetic connection and provide a medical history. It’s the least a human being should expect from a blood relative. Understand that DNA matters to her, as it does to everyone else.B.K. JacksonBEFORE YOU GO…

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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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Any surprise can be traumatic, but a DNA surprise raises one of life’s most fundamental questions: Who am I? Your very identity is made up of your memories, your shared stories, and experiences with family and friends. When you find out that something is not true, or not exactly true, it is a major shock to your emotional system.It is easy to tell yourself, “This is no big deal. I should be able to handle this.” But “handling something” is a process. And that process may involve feeling upset and expressing various emotions. Like any trauma, the emotional reactions can come in waves and when you least expect them. You and your family members both may minimize your experience by emphasizing you had good parents, you shouldn’t be upset, or even that you’re being selfish by looking for answers. I tell people that I don’t know what qualifies as an overreaction to news that changes your understanding of your world. Your reaction is not a sign of emotional weakness—it’s a sign that you are in touch with reality enough that you react when reality changes. I suggest you accept your reactions, your feelings, as being there. Accept that they are what you need to feel in the moment. There’s no need to try changing them—that doesn’t work anyway. You need to work through the process.There can be depression, with low mood and irritability, loss of appetite, difficulty sleeping, poor concentration, and an inability to focus on work. There might be anger. Part of what makes this kind of trauma so difficult is that you might think it’s not really that big of a deal—others have it worse. And it’s true, others have it worse. But trauma is not a contest—you can have all the emotions anyway. You are not weak.Yes. Sometimes you just can’t process everything at once and you will feel disoriented and unable to concentrate. The news can be so big that it’s like your circuits are overloaded.Yes. Research has shown for many years that stressful life events (both good stress and bad stress) have an impact on our health. It is important that you allow yourself to experience your emotions and not waste energy on fighting them. You might look at the Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory.It’s important to accept our reactions as normal. The more we fight them or argue that there’s something wrong with us for reacting, the longer it will take to move forward, the longer it will take to heal. Journaling can be immensely helpful. Write down what you’re feeling, even if it seems extreme or overly dramatic. It isn’t. It’s the reality of what you are feeling in the moment. Meditation can be helpful, but if you can’t slow your mind down, that’s ok. Notice and accept that your mind is racing. If you’re able to exercise, that’s a great way of dealing with stress and clearing the mind. Reaching out to understanding friends is important. And there’s a large community online going through similar things. (Use the Resources tab on the Severance home page to find some of these.)I encourage people to move slowly in the process—think of yourself as writing a novel. What information do you need to make the characters more interesting, to make them sympathetic. Is there a way that you can make their behavior understandable? For example, a teenage girl that became pregnant in the past may not have been allowed much say in whether or not to keep the baby or put the child up for adoption. Going back even further in time, a single female may not have had the opportunity to earn a living wage and therefore couldn’t provide for a child. A father may not have known of a child’s existence. There are many more examples I can give. On the other hand, what you learn now becomes part of your story and, if you’re someone reading this, you’re likely the kind of person that wants to know your whole story. Being understanding and sympathetic toward others doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to experience your own emotions, though.

The most important thing is to take care of yourself. Ask yourself what you, yourself, need. Try to find a way to meet that need, but keep in mind you can’t control other people.

Therapy can be very helpful at any point in the process. A good therapist helps you reflect on who you are and who you want to be. Ultimately, you are the author of your story, no matter how many plot twists get added to that story. I would consider therapy necessary and would encourage you to seek help if you’re having symptoms of depression or trauma—low mood, irritability, sleep or appetite problems, inability to concentrate, relationship problems.Searching for answers can be all-consuming. We live in an age in which we can binge-watch on Netflix and learn the answer to a mystery on a television show within hours. When it comes to family mysteries, we have search engines, DNA, and genealogy services. There’s a lot we can learn quickly. But definitive answers can take a long time. Others may not understand our obsession—even others affected by the discovery of a family secret may not care like you do. It’s a very personal thing. It’s important to keep in mind that we can’t necessarily find answers quicker by working harder. As an example, I have spent two years searching for my grandfather’s birth parents. I found his likely father fairly quickly, but could find nothing on his mother. I gave up for a while and came back to the search and found I had earlier ruled out a group of people for some reason. This group has turned out to offer my best leads in my search. It’s important to take care of yourself. Meditate, exercise, sleep, stay in touch with your friends, get out of the house. All of these things will make your search more efficient. Taking care of yourself helps you think more clearly. All of these strategies are part of accepting our humanity, accepting that we don’t control how our bodies and minds react. This includes accepting that other people may be doing their best—we just don’t always know their stories, why they react the way they do. We need to take care of ourselves so we don’t lose ourselves in the process.Keep in mind that what you find in the search will trigger all kinds of emotions. You may find people who share DNA with you, but nothing else. A newfound relative may have no interest in a relationship, or on the other hand, may want more of your time and energy than you want to give. It’s a process, and you may not know what you want until you start finding answers to the secret, until you find these relatives. Don’t assume they’ll want the same things you do. Also, it’s important to keep asking yourself: “What is it I really want? What am I searching for? What values of mine will this search, and its possible answers, satisfy?”We are all ultimately seeking connection and belonging. Unfortunately, life is not clean. We don’t all fit into perfectly designed family trees. It’s estimated that 7% of Americans are adopted or in foster care. Add on top of that all the individuals who grew up in a “nuclear” family but were conceived outside of the marriage or through donors. That’s a huge percentage of us. It is important that we work to remove the stigma of this. We didn’t choose how we came into this world. It’s important that we not stigmatize ourselves. We are just as legitimate as anyone else.

We also need to keep in mind that we may be rejected by newfound biological parents. We need to keep our fantasies in check. These biological relatives are human beings, with strengths and with flaws, just like everyone else. Other people may not understand our need to search and they may have no desire to know the answers themselves. We need to accept that.

Greg Markway, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in St. Louis, Missouri. He became interested in genetic genealogy while searching for the roots of his grandfather, who came to Missouri from New York on an orphan train in 1896.

Read more about shock and trauma related to DNA surprises here and here, and return to the home page for more articles about genetic identity.

BEFORE YOU GO…

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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.

By B.K. JacksonIn our society, we engage in age-old rituals that help share the burden of grief after a loss. We hold the hands of the bereaved through services and at gravesites. We send cards and flowers, make donations, and create meal chains. We stand in solidarity and share stories about the lost loved ones to buoy the spirits of those who mourn them. We offer practical and spiritual succor, shoulders to cry on, and a promise of being there for the bereaved when they need us.

Only sometimes we don’t. For losses that fall outside of society’s norms—particularly those linked with something perceived as shameful or socially embarrassing—the rituals are often absent or ignored, the grievers left alone to tend to their wounds, without empathy and support.

Kenneth Doka, PhD, formerly a professor of gerontology and now senior consultant to the Hospice Foundation of America and author of numerous books about grief, coined the term disenfranchised grief in 1987 to describe the sorrow associated with these situations that stand outside society’s norms of “legitimate” loss. It refers to the emotional aftermath of losses that are not acknowledged or validated by others—a solitary state in which individuals are unable to mourn openly and may suffer in silence. They believe—or are made to feel—that they’re not entitled to the ministrations typically provided when bereavement is socially sanctioned, that their losses aren’t worthy of grief, or that their feelings are inappropriate.

Although there are many contexts in which disenfranchised grief may arise, among the most common, as conceptualized by Doka, are when others:

• don’t recognize relationships (such as those involving ex-spouses, same sex partners, or individuals who’d had an extramarital affair);
• don’t acknowledge the loss as being significant (a divorce; the death of an adult sibling; the loss of a child in a stillbirth or a fetus in an abortion or a miscarriage; or the loss of a pet, a job, or one’s health); and
• view the loss as being socially stigmatized (such as suicide, AIDs, substance abuse).

In each case, the grievers have lost a significant relationship as well as the comfort of shared or public mourning and the social embrace that facilitates grieving and helps shoulder the pain.

Grief may be disenfranchised, Doka explains, not only by society but by oneself. People who are suffering may keep their feelings inside, self-disenfranchising themselves. “Sometimes people don’t feel they have a right to grieve. There may be shame or they don’t understand the legitimacy of their own losses,” he says.We recently spoke to Doka about how disenfranchised grief may be experienced by individuals with losses related to genetic identity, family separation, and family secrets. You may be vulnerable to it, he says, if, for example, you:

• find out that a family member is not genetically connected to you;
• discover the identity of your biological father only to find that he’s deceased;
• search for and find biological family members but are rejected by them; or
• you learn of the death of a biological family member who refused contact with you

In each of these cases, Doka observes, you’ve lost a relationship. “It may not be a relationship that you ever had, but you may have lost a fantasy of a relationship you wanted to have.” And when kinship roles are not recognized, he adds, the right to grieve is also not recognized.

Disenfranchised grief also comes into play when secrets prevent open communication, observes 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). Furthermore, adoptees, donor conceived people, and NPEs (not parent expected or nonparental event) individuals often have fantasies of reconciliation and a desire to understand their origin stories. When they search and find that their biological parents have died or they contact living relatives who are nonresponsive, there’s a lot of grief involved. “A piece of what they need to know is not available,” says Doka. “We like to create stories about ourselves. We want to know where we were born and who raised us, but in some situations the narrative is incomplete.” When you don’t know how you began, he adds, it influences your sense of self, and there’s grief over the loss of identity.

For all these types of losses, it’s a good bet that few will stand with you in any rituals of mourning, because in many cases there are no such rituals. And when there are, such as the funeral of a birthparent with whom you had not reunited—the man who, while married, had an affair with your mother and later ignored your attempt to connect—you may be excluded or made to feel unwelcome. And if the birthfather you never had the opportunity to meet died, it’s not likely friends will acknowledge that you have cause to mourn, let alone send Hallmark cards or drop by with casseroles. It’s even less likely if you’ve only just discovered—at the same time you learned who your birthfather was—that he died some time ago. And there are no rituals for adoptees who mourn the parents they’ve never known and may never know or for donor conceived individuals who can’t locate their donors. In all of these situations, others may never understand your sadness and your sense of loss over someone you didn’t know and something that happened long ago.

You—and those around you—may not believe you have the need or right to grieve for a relationship that never existed, but the loss of the idea, the wish, the hope for a relationship is as painful as the actual loss of a loved one.

“There are losses here,” Gilbert agrees. If you were adopted, for example, she says, “You didn’t have just one loss, you had layer upon layer of losses.” About this grief you experience over not having known your biological family, she says, “You own it, you know it, you feel it. And then you have this social surround—all the people around you looking at you and saying, ‘I know it’s hard, but you should be grateful for everything you have, for having the knowledge you have.” While there’s no reason for adopted individuals to feel gratitude, it’s not only expected but is also believed to erase any pain associated with the adoption experience. “And the thing is,” says Gilbert, “you may be very grateful, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t have a loss.”

Adoptees, furthermore, “are often told how lucky they were to get adopted, so they may feel disenfranchised from being able to mourn the loss of their birth/first parents,” adds JaeRan Kim, PhD, MSW, assistant professor of  social work at the University of Washington Tacoma. And the feelings of donor conceived individuals may similarly be disrespected by those who suggest they not only should not feel loss but should consider themselves fortunate merely to exist.

What does it matter if others don’t understand? Social acknowledgement of losses is important, Gilbert says, because as social animals we require it. “It may be hard-wired into us to have those who support and care for us confirm the reality we’re trying to construct.” We don’t make sense of things ourselves, she explains. “We make sense in a social context. We play off of other people. We think about things and look at other people and see how they react to us.”People experiencing disenfranchised grief, says Doka, “often have manifestations of grief, anger, and guilt and they don’t identify it as such.” To cope with disenfranchised grief, it’s necessary to recognize it. Acknowledge your feelings and understand that they are legitimate—you own them and are entitled to them—and identify them as grief. After this first step, there are no silver bullets, Doka observes, but there are a few self-help strategies that can be useful.When helping clients with disenfranchised grief or other issues, Doka often asks them to examine their own coping abilities. He asks, “’How have you coped with losses in the past? What’s been helpful and what has not?’ My message would be to analyze your historic strength and utilize it, and that’s going to be different for everyone.”Rituals of mourning play a role in helping individuals mourn and integrate the experience of loss into their lives. If you’ve been excluded or prohibited from participating in these rituals and have not been supported in your sorrow, it might be helpful to create what Doka calls a therapeutic ritual. Even If the loss occurred in the past but there wasn’t an opportunity to mourn, it’s not too late to create these healing rituals.

There are several questions you’ll need to ask yourself when devising a ritual, Doka says. First, what is the message associated with the ritual you want to create? For someone who was rejected by a birth parent, “It may be a message of affirmation, just saying, ‘I don’t know why you didn’t have contact with me but thank you for giving me a piece of life, being part of my life.’ Or it may be a ritual of continuity, in which you say, ‘I acknowledge that I’m part of you even if you didn’t acknowledge me.’ It might be a ritual of transition in which you say, “I don’t need your approval or recognition any more. I am who I am and that’s fine.’”

The second question is, what are the elements of your healing ritual—what form will it take? And last, ask yourself whether anyone needs to witness the ritual, and if so, who? In some cases, Doka says, you may want to involve your siblings or your significant other, and in others you might want a broader audience of friends and family.

According to Gilbert, these don’t have to be “rituals with a capital R, but just acts that take you outside of the mundane, give greater meaning, and help you deal with something.” It might be as simple as lighting a candle and saying the name of the person you lost,” she says. It can be done privately or in a group, but it has to be something that’s meaningful to you. “It acknowledges that it was a loss, it was real, there’s emotion associated with it, and that that’s okay.” Gilbert remembers when she assigned a class of students to create loss rituals. One student, she recalls, wrote a letter to her father, who had died when she was very young. She went with a friend to a fire pit and burned the sealed letter. As the smoke was rising into the sky she said, “Dad I’m sending this letter to you and it’s coming to you on this smoke.” Another student cooked and enjoyed the favorite meal of someone associated with a loss. It doesn’t necessarily require an audience, says Gilbert, just a sincere intention to create a meaningful acknowledgement.

After you develop and carry out your ritual, it’s helpful, Doka says, to find someone, perhaps a therapist, “who can help you unpack the experience.” Together, he suggests, you can explore how the ritual worked for you and whether it met your needs or whether you need to do something else.Experiencing grief isn’t reason alone to need help. You needn’t seek help because others think you need to “get over it.” People can be uncomfortable with others’ grief, even more so when it’s disenfranchised. When they want you to get over it, what they’re really saying, Gilbert observes, is “‘Stop behaving in a way that makes me uncomfortable. I want you to go back to what I see as normal.’ But your normal is never going to be that normal anymore because you’ve had this loss and its changed reality.”

While others may want to rush you through your grief, you don’t have to operate on any timeline but your own. “Grieving is normal and can take a long time,” says Gilbert. “It can be like a river you fall into. Sometimes you’re drowning and sometimes you’re paddling along with it. It’s not that bad, the water is warm, and you can almost touch the bottom. And that’s okay.”

“Grief is its own being,” agrees Beth Kane, LCSW, a private practitioner in New Jersey. “It’s not something you get over. It’s something you learn to live with, a companion you learn to integrate into your life.” It changes you, she says, “but you learn not to let it define you. That takes whatever time it takes as long as you don’t get swallowed by it.” Healing, she says, no matter what kind, is never a linear process. “It’s a slip and slide, up and down, back and forth, two steps up and one back. We get there eventually, but processing and integration don’t work like a stepladder.” And with grief, “the only two fixed points are the shock and the resolution.” Resolution, she adds, doesn’t mean the pain goes away. It just means we have integrated it and it isn’t as acute as often.”

We’re complex creatures, Gilbert says. “We can’t be happy all the time. That’s okay. That’s where empathy and caring about other people comes from.” According to Kim, “Individuals who experience disenfranchised grief need to be supported by those who acknowledge the great emotional and psychological costs of trying to be ‘strong,’ rather than allowing themselves to mourn.”Disenfranchised grief, because its burden isn’t relieved through the support of others, may be internalized, resulting in what psychologists call complicated grief, or grief that has no resolution. “When we are invalidated, we often suppress our real feelings for fear of being judged, says Kane. This interference with the bereavement process, and disenfranchised grief, she says, can lead to complicated grief, which can cause symptoms such as difficulty with normal daily activities, a sense of purposelessness, longing for the object of the loss, and intense focus on the loss. It also can instigate or exacerbate mental health issues including anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and even PTSD. Worse, those who experience disenfranchised grief may be less likely than others to seek help for fear of being further stigmatized. But a therapist can help individuals get past these fears and dispel the attitudes that prevent them from working through their grief. Kane works with her clients to avoid labeling feelings and emotions as “good, bad, positive, or negative.” “It’s through awareness, acceptance, and support that we can work through them.”

What makes grief complicated and problematic, Gilbert says, is if you can’t function. “If you can’t carry out your day to day functions, if you socially isolate yourself, if you’re using drugs or alcohol to deaden your interaction with the world, if you feel ending your own life would be the best way to deal with what’s ongoing in your life at this time, that’s significant and a point at which you need to be working with someone who’s professional to help you find your way back.”You may find all the care and empathy you need by participating in a support group run by a trained professional. But when grieving is more complicated, professional help may be necessary. It’s important, Gilbert says, to seek help from an expert. Many people who consider themselves grief therapists may not be adequately trained, she says, and may believe helping individuals cope with grief is a matter of educating them about the five stages of grief—a largely discredited concept that’s not research-based and was never intended to apply to loss of loved ones. Look for a therapist, she advises, who’s certified in thanatology (the scientific study of death and practices associated with it) and credentialed by the Association for Death Education and Counseling.

“When people are grieving, they often feel that they’re crazy,” says Gilbert. “It’s helpful to have someone who can tell you that your crazy is normal.” When you think about it, she adds, “If something horrific happens and it knocks you off kilter, if you feel normal you’re kind of crazy.”

By B.K. JacksonWhen family secrets are unveiled by DNA tests or otherwise revealed, the secret discoverers and the secret keepers are faced with thorny decisions about whether to come clean about their secrets or double down on them. For each, the stakes are high. And with secrets related to genetic identity and origin stories, there may be many stakeholders and a ripple effect on many others individuals who might be deeply affected by the maintenance or divulgence of inconvenient truths.

If you’ve discovered, for example, that your mother has kept to herself the fact that you were conceived during a clandestine relationship, uncovering her affair is likely to trigger shock waves not only for you, but also for your social or birth-certificate father, your biological father, and all of their families. It might even affect your relationships with your significant other and your children. This is equally true if you’ve found that you’re a late-discovery adoptee or were donor conceived, the latter widening still further the ripple effect since the size of your biological family is potentially large and the revelations may be ongoing.

You may wrestle continually with whether to “come out” with your story knowing that in doing so, you will “out” someone else and there will be consequences. But because secrets pertaining to your origin story—to your truth—are fundamental and foundational, you may feel you have no choice. To not reveal your genetic identity may make you feel inauthentic or mired in a shame that isn’t yours.

Setting aside the issue of whose secret is it to tell and who has the right to open these hornets’ nests (we’ll get to that in another article), it may be in your best interest—in fact it may be essential to your well-being—to set the record straight. But unshrouding long-hidden truths is likely to trigger a cascade of reactions, including guilt, anger, shame, and feelings of betrayal, among all the parties involved. Whether families will withstand the impact or crack may depend on how the family skeletons are let loose.

The truth, it’s often said, will set you free, but there are ways of allowing the truth to come to light without leaving you with—as the song goes—“nothin’ left to lose.” Being mindful of the potential repercussions and talking about them may help reduce collateral damage.

There’s no right way to go about unburdening oneself of a secret, and when it comes to the consequences, every family is different, says Katy Barbier-Greenland, who studies family secrets as part of a PhD program based in sociology and psychology—Family Secrets, Secret Families. Inspired by the discovery of a major family secret of her own and a resulting fascination with the ways in which identity, secrecy, silence, stigma, taboo, knowledge, and power function in and around families, the project aims to explore how reproductive family secrets—those involving conception and birth—affect people’s lives. These include secret or hidden children, siblings, and half siblings; secret adoptions, surrogacy, donor conceptions; children conceived in ways seen as taboo; and misattributed or unanticipated parentage.

As part of her research, Barbier-Greenland interviewed adults about their secrets to “shed light on what these immensely personal and transformative life experiences mean for people, their identities, and their perspectives on families.” This research will provide a base that professionals can use to support individuals going through these difficult experiences.Barbier-Greenland sketches the two sides of the issue. “The adult child might think, ‘I don’t want to be dishonest anymore. I want to tell my story and begin to create my new identity. I want to search for my biological father and any siblings. I want to tell my kids the truth about our ancestry. I want to start to move on from the harm that secrecy has caused. I don’t want to lie about who I am anymore.” The parent, however, may think, “I don’t want to be exposed. I don’t want things to change. I don’t want to face negative reactions and judgment from others. I don’t want aspects of my private life made public.”

How is it possible to bridge the distance or meet in the middle?

It won’t be easy to move from secrecy to honesty after decades of suppressing the truth—even when there hasn’t been a “web of lies or active deceit and dishonesty,” says Barbier-Greenland.

All of her interviewees expressed the wish that they’d learned about family secrets earlier, “mostly so they could have developed relationships with family members earlier on in their lives and because their lives would have unfolded differently.” Still, they agree, it’s best not to rush into decisions. Preparation and support are key. It’s necessary for both sides to communicate with each other and work through the repercussions of revealing or keeping the secret. Each needs to know what’s at stake for the other and what needs to be overcome.

When debating disclosure of secrets, the determining factor should be more than merely “honesty is the best policy,” says Barbier-Greenland. It’s more complicated, she says, with much more to consider. “Some of my interviewees have spoken with their parents or family members immediately in sensitive and empathic ways and they’ve been able to find a positive way forward; some have tried to do the same but have had families completely shatter and relationships crumble.” It’s difficult to strike a balance, she adds, advising that it’s wise to take time to consider your way forward carefully and avoid making hasty decisions or sudden disclosures.

If there’s a positive relationship, for example, between an adult child who wants to be open about their origin story and a parent who doesn’t, she advises not rushing to disclose the secret. Although she acknowledges that everyone’s story is theirs to tell, she recommends proceeding cautiously and with patience and deliberation. “Given some time to get use to the idea, the secret keeper might be willing to be more open, and together you can find a way to understand each other’s needs and preferences and navigate this difficult time together.”

It would be helpful, she says, for the adult child who wants to be open to consider what’s gone into the secret-keeping—“how many years and how much of the parents’ identity may be wrapped up in this secret—and that unravelling it and sharing it with the world could have an immense impact on the parent.”

Take into account both how much their lives might be changed by opening this secret and be mindful of what the circumstances were in which the truth was hidden. Although sometimes secrets are kept for selfish reasons, says Barbier-Greenland, there are other reasons. “In doing this project, I’ve learned that compassion for secret keepers is of the utmost importance. People keep secrets for so many reasons, and it’s complex. Sometimes they keep secrets out of love, because they were obliged to, or they wanted to protect themselves or someone else.”

Further, societal taboos, stigma, and behavioral expectations might have been very different then than now, she observes.

On the other hand, the secret keepers must recognize that times have changed.

Decades of work concerning adoptees and donor conceived individuals have shown that understanding one’s biogenetic origins is essential to understanding oneself, says Barbier-Greenland. “It’s not everything, but it’s central. Since the 1990s, the literature globally has turned toward and recommended openness rather than secrecy in families and legislative and policy trends have shifted in response.”

Parents need to be aware of the reasons for this shift in understanding and realize that not knowing one’s origin story, or knowing it and not being able to share it, may be devastating. Learning that you aren’t quite who you thought you were and having to create a new identity will be an enormous and often painful hurdle, Barbier-Greenland observes. “Anger, anxiety, sadness, frustration—all these emotions are common, and the effects can be traumatic,” she says. “Discovering a family secret about your birth or conception is a transformative life experience and forces people to rewrite their life stories and reframe their identities and definitions of family. It impacts family relationships and can be utterly profound,” she says. It not only changes how you think about yourself and your future, she adds, but may even change how your children think about themselves and their future.

“People have to deal with the fact that close family members kept a major family secret from them as well as deal with the actual secret itself. This is huge.” Thus, there almost certainly will be trust issues to work through and your relationship can’t help but be affected in some way.

Parents need to be aware, too, that your discovery of a secret surrounding your conception may have been shattering. It’s essential, she says, that they understand both why you need to know the details of the secret and why you may need to share the secret.

“It’s important to acknowledge that the relationships will be affected in some way. It’s quite possible that relationships between other family members will also be affected, and that some families can come together and some will splinter and fall apart after such disclosures. To reduce the possibility of the latter outcome, seek support. A therapist can help you and your parent work together to understand each other’s feelings and viewpoints, to understand the possible repercussions, and talk about how to proceed with dignity and sensitivity.

“You’re not alone,” says Barbier-Greenland. “I encourage everyone in this situation to seek support.” In addition to therapists, genetic genealogists are especially well suited to help, she says, because they have a deep understanding of all sides of these issues. “There are also some great online groups where people can chat with others in similar situations and those who are at different stages in their journey, which can be immensely valuable.”It might be worth considering, Barbier-Greenland says, “that disclosure doesn’t mean shouting it from the rooftops or making a big announcement on social media or at a family gathering.” Instead, you can disclose in stages, giving people time to adjust, telling first a few family members and friends, and then over time others as it seems appropriate or necessary.

Reassuring your parent that you would only ever reveal the secret to appropriate people in sensitive ways is important, she says. While some may disagree with the need to restrict the nature of the revelation or be unwilling to be anything but fully forthcoming, being as sensitive as possible can help preserve relationships and reduce harm.

The parents, says Barbier-Greenland, “would also benefit from some strategies for having a conversation with people if they get approached by family members or others that the adult child has disclosed to. This would help develop their capacity and equip them better,” she says. “It also might help them feel more confident about shifting toward openness and honesty.”

Taking the time to work through things, says Barbier-Greenland, “gives everyone time to process the experience for themselves, ensuring that no one reacts in the moment without considering each other and others in the family. There’s the possibility that with time and work, and professional support, the parent will eventually feel able to support you in revealing the secret to the world.”

She mindful that’s a best-case scenario. In many cases, the discussions can’t be broached because the secret keeper is adamant about maintaining the status quo. And in others, discussions breakdown, resulting in an impasse. In such cases, says Barbier-Greenland, “maintaining secrecy or colluding with deception is not an option for the adult child.” Still, a meaningful conversation and a meeting of the minds, she says, is something to strive for.

To learn more about Barbier-Greenland’s research, see her website and follow her on twitter @KatyBeeGreen.

By B.K. JacksonEveryone knows about the five stages of grief. And therein lies the problem. Introduced in 1969 by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross in her book “On Death and Dying” as a blueprint for the emotional responses experienced by people with terminal illness, the five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—have been applied, or, many argue, misapplied—to the experience of grief. The media touted the stages to such a degree that they became dogma, and now, decades later, they remain influential. They’re recommended by medical professionals to patients and by friend to friend, not only as guide to coping with the loss of a loved one but also as a balm for the emotions associated with any type of loss, whether a romantic breakup or a job termination. All this, despite the fact that there’s no scientific basis for the five stages, even for use with the terminally ill.

While the stages, arguably, may have limited usefulness as a tool in the hands of trained grief therapists and in end-of-life care, their value for helping individuals self-manage grief has been widely overstated and, according to some experts, misrepresented.

“So many people think grief is described by Kübler-Ross’s ideas about the five stages of grief,” says 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). “But people don’t do those stages. The concept, she says, was devised by a chaplain who wanted to help people of his faith who were in the process of dying. It wasn’t based on research, she adds, only on his own belief system. Kübler-Ross appropriated the concept and applied it to people experiencing grief related to the loss of loved ones.”

The concept, Gilbert says, “feels real because it seems like such a nice progression. The problem is that we as a species don’t do progression well.” The stages don’t even work with the dying, she adds. “Nobody does it that way, but it feels good to think you’re not going to have to find your own way. But everyone has to find their own way because everyone grieves in their own unique manner.”

Mention the five stages to Pauline Boss, a family therapist, educator, and expert on loss—as we did in an interview—and she simply says, “Oh please!” She points out that “in Kübler-Ross’s last book, which unfortunately few people read before she died, she herself said they were meant for the person who was dying, not for the mourners. And she herself said grief is messy, not linear.”

David Kessler, who, having cowritten two books with Kübler-Ross—“Life Lessons: Two Experts on Death & Dying Teach Us About the Mysteries of Life & Living,” and “On Grief & Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss”—acknowledges that during the last 40 years the stages have been misunderstood. Still, in his forthcoming book, “Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief”—informed by the loss of his 21-year-old son—he continues to discuss grief in terms of the stages, even delineating a sixth stage—finding meaning. While he describes the five stages as “tools to help us frame and identify what we may be feeling,” he acknowledges, as Kübler-Ross did, that individuals don’t go through these stages in order. It’s a curious statement, though, since a stage, by definition, is a step in a process.

While Kessler agrees that “there’s not a typical response to loss as there is no typical loss,” he characterizes the stages as “responses to loss that many people have.” Yet even that’s a notion in dispute. Although Kessler says the stages were “never meant to help tuck messy emotions into neat packages,” many experts observe that they continue to be “prescribed” exactly for the purpose of compartmentalizing emotions into tidy categories, offering what may be an unreliable road map through grief—one that’s bound to make travelers who don’t experience the stages feel lost and confused. The problem, these experts suggest, is not only that the stages aren’t linear, but that they don’t truly represent the collective experience—because there really is no collective experience.

Numerous critics have noted conceptual weaknesses and over-simplification in the stage concept, some insisting it doesn’t stand up to scientific scrutiny. In 2003, Yale researchers looked at the grieving experience of 233 people, and although they found some aspects were as described by Kübler-Ross, others were not. They also found that the while Kübler-Ross described depression as the most intense of the reactions to grief, the grievers in their study pointed to yearning for their lost loved ones as the most powerful negative effect. And Columbia University psychologist and grief expert George Bonanno disputes the stage theory, suggesting instead that grief is experienced in waves, the severity of which diminishes over time. And in 2011, Ruth Davis Konigsberg argued against the usefulness of the stages in “The Truth About Grief: The Myth of its Five Stages and the New Science of Loss.”

In “Misguided Through the Stages of Grief,” Margaret Stroebe, Henk Schut, and Kathrin Boerner track the rise of Kübler-Ross’s stage theory and the subsequent variations offered by other scholars. In the article, they focus on “emergent lines of argument against stage theory, covering conceptual concerns, lack of empirical validity, its failure to assist in identifying those at risk or with complications, and the potentially negative consequences for bereaved persons themselves,” concluding that the stages miss the mark in each aspect. They argue not only that the steps have no utility, but also that they actually may be harmful to people who do not go through them. The stages, they believe, should be discarded and “relegated to the realms of history.”

If they have so little real value, how did these stages become so deeply accepted and ingrained as to become the gospel of grief? According to Boss, who’s working on a book about the myth of closure, “American society loved the five stages because they offer a way to get over it, to find closure, which is a very American idea,” she says. “You don’t hear people from Latin American, Mexico, or Asia ever talk about that. They don’t see it as necessary to have closure.” The idea that we need to get over loss and move on, Boss believes, is a uniquely North American idea.

So, what do you need to know about the five stages of grief? Forget about them. The steps are appealing because they offer comforting guideposts to the unknown and promise order and predictability. But grief is neither orderly nor predictable. Columbia University’s Center for Complicated Grief characterizes typical grief in simpler terms, dividing the experience into acute grief and integrated grief. The former is the intense experience of sorrow and yearning that overshadows an individual in the immediate aftermath of a loss. It may be accompanied by difficult emotions including guilt, anger, and anxiety. Integrated grief is the grief we live with and fold into our lives; it takes up less space but doesn’t disappear. Not a typical reaction to loss, complicated grief is when acute grief persists and continues to overshadow one’s life, interferes with normal life, and results in dysfunctional beliefs and behaviors.

If your feelings threaten to overwhelm you, it’s wise to seek help from a trained grief therapist, preferably one certified in thanatology (the scientific study of death and practices associated with it) and credentialed by the Association for Death Education and Counseling. A therapist can help even when grief isn’t all-consuming. If, however, you’re wading through so-called normal grief alone, remember that the use of words like “journey” and “path” don’t suggest there’s an endpoint. Grief is ongoing, meandering. It may be universal, but it’s not universally experienced. Your journey will be unique. There’s no timeline and you don’t need a map. You’ll find your own way, and it will take as long as it takes.

Whether it arises from the death of a loved one, the loss of a genetic identity, or rejection by birth family—grief is a wild, unpredictable tumbleweed and you’re along for the ride.

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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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.