Short Takes: People, News & Research

Second Annual DNA Surprise Retreat June 1, 2024 Following the success of last year’s event, the second annual DNA Surprise Retreat is set to take place from September 19-22, 2024, at the picturesque Saguaro Lake Ranch outside of Phoenix, AZ. This retreat is designed for those who have experienced life-altering discoveries through consumer DNA tests, providing a supportive and healing community. The inaugural retreat was met with overwhelmingly positive feedback, with participants finding solace, understanding, and camaraderie among peers who shared similar experiences. At the 2024 retreat, attendees will benefit from expert-led sessions on topics such as generational trauma, parts work, and betrayal trauma. In addition, the retreat will offer rejuvenating yoga and breathwork sessions led by seasoned facilitators, ensuring a holistic approach to healing. Co-founder Alexis Hourselt, who faced her own DNA surprise in 2021 upon learning that the man who raised her was not her biological father, expressed the transformative impact of these retreats. “My DNA surprise completely upended my sense of identity,” said Hourselt. “Navigating new family relationships and feeling a profound sense of betrayal was incredibly isolating. But through this community, I found that I was not alone.” Hourselt co-founded the retreat with Debbie Olson, who discovered in 2019 that her estranged father was alive after being told he had died. “We’re thrilled to continue creating spaces where people can come together, share their stories, and heal,” said Olson. Hourselt and Olson are committed to continuing this vital support network. “No one expects their world to be turned upside down by a DNA test,” said Hourselt. “It’s essential for people to know they are not alone and that there is a community ready to help.” For more information and to register for the retreat, visit www.dnasurpriseretreat.com.

On Saturday November 4, 2023, The Benevolent Society, Post Adoption Resource Centre presents the Adoption Literary Festival to showcase a range of adoption stories in an Australian context.  The presentations will amplify the voices of lived experience and highlight the lifelong nature and complexities of adoption. The first Adoption Literary Festival took place in the United States in February 2022. This will be the first of its kind in Australia. The online event takes place from 9:30 am to 2:30 pm Australian Eastern Daylight Time (15 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time.) Click here for more information and to book free tickets.   Click on image to read more.

Contribute to IRB-approved research about people who receive surprising not-parent-expected findings on ancestral DNA tests.

Two women in the DNA surprise community are offering a healing retreat for people who have experienced DNA surprises, May 4-7 in Tucson, Arizona. The inaugural DNA Surprise Retreat was created to increase community and support for people who have uncovered shocking information about their families after taking a DNA test. Co-founder Alexis Hourselt, host of the DNA Surprises podcast, experienced her DNA surprise (also known as an NPE or non-paternal event) in 2021 when she learned that the man who raised her is not her biological father. In addition, she discovered that she is white and African American instead of white and Mexican, as she’d once believed. “My DNA surprise caused a complete upheaval of my identity,” says Hourselt. “I was navigating these new family relationships, feeling betrayed by my raised parents, and discovering an entirely new part of myself. It was very isolating, but this is actually quite common.” DNA surprise facts It’s estimated that 1 in 20 people have misattributed parentage. 82 percent of DNA test takers learned the identity of at least one genetic relative. It’s estimated that 3 percent of adoptees do not know they are adopted. After Hourselt met co-founder Debbie Olson, owner of DNA Surprise Network, at a retreat for adoptees, donor-conceived people, and NPEs, they decided to create a retreat specifically for people who have experienced DNA surprises. “The DNA surprise experience is so unique,” says Olson, who experienced her DNA surprise in 2019 when she learned that her estranged father was alive after being told he died. “We’re excited about increasing opportunities for people who have been through these shocking events to come together and heal.” About DNA Surprise Retreat The DNA Surprise Retreat is for adults experiencing the grief and shock that can only be felt following a DNA discovery. The four-day event offers expert-led sessions and community for NPEs, conceived people, and adoptees who have experienced a DNA surprise. The retreat will feature six sessions led by experts on trauma, grief, self-compassion, and more. All meals are included. Attendees can opt to stay on site at a local retreat center or register for the retreat-only portion. Hourselt and Olson hope to continue offering DNA surprise retreats in the future. “No one imagines that their world will be turned upside down when they send off a DNA test kit,” said Hourselt. “People need to know that they aren’t alone and there is help.”

HBO is developing a new documentary about unexpected DNA discoveries and is seeking participants willing to share their stories. The film is to be produced by an award-winning team and directed by an Emmy-nominated filmmaker who is herself an NPE. Described as “a deeply humane exploration of the seismic shocks that home genetic testing has brought to so many families, and how people are navigating these emotionally-charged journeys of self-discovery,” the project intends to “give voice to people whose lives have been upended by these long hidden truths, and to de-stigmatize some of the shame associated with them.” If you are interested in participating or finding out more, please visit their website at https://dnasurprisesdocumentary.castingcrane.com.

Adoption is a psychological barrier. Not knowing how or why you got there, it feels like you are forced to live your life in a bubble, chained to the ground that belongs to someone else. Inside your head, your brain feels like it’s being restricted, with a thick invisible fog that’s anchored at the base of your skull with an axe. Physically your voice has been stolen from you by society and held to ransom. Your heart feels crushed with grief and loss. Your perception of life is skewed into one that others expect you to have. Your abilities and life skills are severely hampered, distorted, and delayed. Your identity is confused. When you finally see a way out, it’s like you’ve been drugged; your consciousness stumbles out of the fog while your body and your abilities hit against every obstacle imaginable. The only way out usually means walking through your adoptive family’s collective heart. Bloodied guilt drags behind you like a constant reminder of where you’ve come from. Waves of pain and guilt hold on to you, trying to pull you back in. The light ahead is blissful yet I feel lost, not knowing where to go or what to do next or even how to do it. The unknown is frightening but I feel compelled to breathe like it’s my first breath and take each step one at a time in hope that I will eventually find myself, wherever that may be.

The Faces of NPE Project was created by Carmen Dixon to help NPEs (not parent expected) know they’re not alone and to bring awareness to individuals outside the community. While reflecting on her own NPE journey, she remembered that it took time at first to find information and support. She did ultimately find many support communities and great resources, each with something different to offer. Now, she’s brought something new into the mix—The Faces of NPE Project. The idea, she says, is simple. The project amasses images of the faces of NPEs. “Every year, we’ll keep adding new submissions to the existing project, and as the number of faces get added, eventually viewers won’t see specific individual portraits but just a sea of faces—and that’s the point, to emphasize how many NPEs exist worldwide.” The images, Dixon says, will be released yearly in June through social media as a public shareable tool that can be used to help generate awareness. If you would like to be a part of this project, send your photo submission to facesofnpeproject@outlook.com. Photos submitted between June 24, 2022 and May 14, 2023 will appear in 2023. Find the project on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

matthew charles is a poet, podcast host, and educator. We talk to him about the experience of being a transracial adoptee (TRA), his emergence as a poet and activist, and the importance of self-expression. In your bio, you use the phrase “racially marooned.” Can you talk about what that choice of words means to you and how it describes the experience of being a transracial adoptee? The popular term I’ve heard other transracial adoptees use is “racially isolated” but I coined “racially marooned” because I feel it more viscerally evokes a sense of void in regard to lack of racial mirrors. I have a poem I wrote called “Closed Transracial Adoption is | God’s Gift” where I write, “i’m the first landmass that drifted from Pangea / you don’t understand how alone i feel.” You’ve written that as a child you experienced life as if a veil covered your eyes. What did you mean by that and what happened to cause the veil to drop? As a transracial adoptee whose body was raised racially marooned, I was acculturated into whiteness, made to believe that there were my kin, and my allegiances. Yet I was also rejected daily by whiteness through micro and macro aggressions. Realizing that even though my body was literally purchased by whiteness I had no purchase in whiteness was an apocalypse, of sorts. It freed me to practice Sankofa—a Ghanaian symbol that means, “to retrieve.” I had to retrieve the Black essence of who I am in order to reorient myself in the world—not as a(n adopted) child of whiteness but as a doubly displaced African. Hip-Hop was formative for you as an adolescent and you were a performer. What happened that caused you to shift to poetry? I’d always practiced writing Haikus to sharpen my ability to say a lot with not many words, so in some senses I was already interdisciplinary. However, at 17 when I was recording music in Saint Louis I lost my voice. I’d end up not able to speak for three years. This vocal disability still affects me to this day. It was in that purgatory that I more consciously altered my craft to poetry because I was afraid I’d never be able to perform or tour again. When you began to express yourself—first in Hip-Hop and later in poetry—did you immediately take transracial adoption as your subject, or did that happen later? No, I didn’t use rap to talk about myself. I used rap to project a false image. One of the reasons I shifted to poetry was because how I engaged with the genre of Rap felt constricting. I’d felt like I couldn’t be vulnerable. Themes of adoption began appearing in my work as early as 2018 but I didn’t set out to create a body of work with adoption as the central theme until my newest and as of yet unpublished book of poetry, meet me in the clearing. Did you ever study formally or was Hip-Hop all the education you needed? I taught myself all of the forms of Creativity that I practice—poetry, rap, essay, memoir. Is poetry as much a means of survival as an artistic expression? I wouldn’t be alive today if I didn’t have my art practice. As i write in “To Pimp An Adopted Butterfly,” art is one of my most enduring and longstanding relationships, and it has helped me know myself, and in the process of knowing myself it has saved my life countless times. Similarly, are poetry and activism synonymous for you? Do you see your artistry as a form of activism? While I don’t see them as synonymous, my artistry often is laced with activist intent. But the first goal in my creative process is to create something meaningful to me. In art and in activism, who are your influences? Who are the most important voices among transracial adoptees—poets or otherwise? Who do you listen to? Who do you admire? When it comes to art I like Lucille Clifton, Hafiz, Jay Electronica, and Joy Oladukun. But I’m not sure who the most important voices are for TRAs. Voices I’ve been most impacted by are Dr. Daniel ElAwar, Rebecca Carroll, and Hannah Jackson Matthews.

It was a movement waiting to happen. It only needed a catalyst. Enter Dr. Laura Schlessinger, an unapologetic bully and “infotainment” therapist masquerading as a helping professional. Host of the Dr. Laura Program heard daily on Sirius XM, Schlessinger bills herself as a “talk radio and podcast host offering no-nonsense advice infused with a strong sense of ethics, accountability and personal responsibility.” A Los Angeles marriage and family therapist, she’s no stranger to controversy, for example, when it became known that in the early days of her a television program, her staff posed as guests or when, two decades ago, she declared that homosexuality was “a biological error” and made racist comments that temporarily derailed her radio career. Now, with audience of eight million, her Sirius XM audience doesn’t shy away from the sensationalism that ratchets up the ratings. Recently, she directed her venom at NPEs (not parent expected.) On July 7, a segment of “The Call of the Day”—“My Mom Never Told Me the Truth”—was subtitled, “Torri’s uncertain she can continue to have a relationship with her mom after discovering her dad is not her biological father.” The caller, Torri, sought Schlessinger’s help, stating that she wasn’t sure how to continue on in her relationship with her mother after learning, only recently, that her dad wasn’t her biological father. Schlessinger asked Torri if the man who raised her was nice, and when Torri said he was, Schlessinger launched into an assumption-filled toxic diatribe. She berated Torri, asking “What in the hell is wrong with you?” When Torri tried to explain she was upset by her mother’s lying, Schlessinger responded by saying, “So what? So what? Who gives a shit?”

The DNA discovery situation is unique in several ways. It’s unique to our time because of our access to science, and it’s unique in mental health because of the combination of issues triggered throughout the experience. Those who experience an unexpected DNA discovery may include adoptees, NPEs (not parent expected), and donor conceived individuals. Although they take different paths to their DNA discoveries, the emotional issues they experience along the way are quite related and, in some cases, identical. Yet, the mental health community isn’t at all well-prepared to deal with the DNA discovery experience. Astonishingly, there are practicing therapists who cannot engage their empathy when facing a DNA discovery client. I hear stories of NPEs leaving sessions feeling worse than they did going in because the therapists dismissed their pain, just as their known families did. After seeking help to sort out their feelings and cope with their confusion, these clients leave with guilt added to the cornucopia of emotional turmoil, being told by therapists “he’s still your dad” or “it really hasn’t changed anything about you.” In fact, much has changed for NPEs, but as in any case of grief, it often isn’t apparent to the outside observer. I counsel as many bereaved clients on how to engage support from loved ones as I do NPEs, and that’s because we as a species are not good at dealing with emotional pain. We want it to go away, to be as short lived as possible and be something someone else deals with. The DNA discovery experience rivals most traumas—with sudden grief and loss, unwanted changes in family dynamics, and profound identity confusion, all condensed in a short period of time.

Our fellow adoptees are in need. The COVID-19 pandemic has severely disrupted many aspects of life across the world. Many people are struggling to obtain basic necessities while countless others are hurting due to lack of job security. During these hard times, we want to recognize and support our community members who are without citizenship, and thus have limited/no access to unemployment benefits, healthcare, housing, food, COVID-19 testing/treatment and will not receive a stimulus check.  Cindy’s story: Cindy is an adoptee, and like many of us, she is struggling because of COVID-19. She doesn’t have support from her adoptive family, and as a single mom, she has to take care of her young daughter while still working to pay for basic necessities like food and utilities. Because of Cindy’s current situation, she can’t receive any type of benefits.  Cindy: “As a single mother, working minimum wage 7 days a week is difficult, but you have to survive.” But Cindy is one out of what is estimated to be thousands of adoptees without citizenship. Many who would most likely be excluded from relief packages like the CARES Act even though she would otherwise be eligible. In response, Adoptees For Justice has established the A4J COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund to provide financial assistance to adoptees without citizenship.

Complex feelings and experiences—like those associated with genetic identity—may be difficult to share through words alone. But art can get to the heart of the matter and communicate more compellingly the tangled emotions and nuances of experiences that arise from grappling with genetic identity issues. There are myriad benefits of artistic expression. Not surprisingly, art is widely known to be a therapeutic strategy, both healing the creators and engendering understanding and empathy in those exposed to it. If you’re donor conceived and have a creative spirit and a point of view to share, there’s a new platform for your expressive projects. Donor-Conceived Voices is a website created to exhibit artistic works that express “both the joy of discovery and the hardship of rejection, the truth of our complex existence exposed in many forms for all to witness.”

Researchers at the University of British Columbia’s Center for Health and Coping Studies in the department of psychology are exploring individuals’ motivations for taking DNA tests and the impact of the results. People take DNA tests for a host of reasons, from wanting to know their ethnic backgrounds to a desire to augment their genealogical research. Increasingly often, however, individuals take direct-to-consumer DNA tests as part of an effort to discover and connect with their biological families. With these discoveries and connections often come emotional repercussions and significant challenges. Adoptees, donor-conceived individuals, and other NPEs (not parent expected) rarely have an opportunity to contribute to research about issues that matter to them, but now they can make a difference.