By David Sanchez BrownI was not the dream son my adoptive parents envisioned I’d be. I was a clumsy, overweight kid with Coke-bottle thick glasses and learning disabilities who couldn’t seem to do anything right—couldn’t even throw a ball. Father-son relationships can be challenging enough in biological families, but I learned early that they’re even more complex for an adopted son.

I was adopted in 1956, but my adoption was a lifelong event. It was a closed adoption, meaning that all genetic connections were severed when a new birth certificate was issued. This separation from my birthmother was the first trauma I experienced, and it influenced every aspect of my life. It diminished my self-esteem, disrupted my identity, and left me unable to form secure and satisfactory attachments.

My adoptive parents made a crucial mistake in waiting until I was eight to tell me I was adopted. I have no idea why they waited so long. I had already established a strong bond with my them, and it confused and shattered me. When I said, “You’re not my real mother, then,” my mother’s face contorted. She looked possessed when she came at me and screamed in my face, “How dare you to question my motherhood, you selfish boy.” My father just stood there and let her rage. It took a moment, but the damage was permanent. I never trusted her after that. Not only had I lost my mother at birth, but now I had a mother who didn’t love or like me.

I’d bonded with my dad early on, but after the adoption talk, my relationship with him, too, changed. I had a younger brother, also adopted, and a younger sister—my parent’s biological child—but since I was the oldest son, there was more pressure on me. I was expected to be of blue-ribbon caliber. He forced me to play catch with him and he had no patience. “Pay attention and keep your eye on the ball,” he’d holler. No matter how hard I tried to concentrate, I always dropped the ball. When he and the kids on the block called me Charlie Brown, it stung.

My efforts to understand geometry were equally dismal. Late nights at the kitchen table with my dad doing homework, we were both stressed. He’d throw back another shot of Cutty Sark whiskey, yelling “pay attention” and cuffing my ears. I’d get debilitating stomach aches. I still hold those memories in my body, especially in my hunched shoulders. I felt broken and internalized the shame of not being enough for my dad.

An alcoholic with a violent temper, my dad was as unsafe as my mother was hot and cold emotionally. He would often say that how I turned out would reflect on him; I had to be perfect, and he was an unrelenting perfectionist. He needed me to be an extension of him, but  I couldn’t. I was the antithesis of him. Perhaps he felt I would become like him as if by osmosis.

It pained me that I couldn’t be more like my dad, but I couldn’t; I was another dad’s son. The more he pushed me, the more I shut down and retreated into my inner world of remote islands.

I didn’t look or act like anyone else in the family. I stuck out like a sore thumb and I became the family scapegoat. The more withdrawn I grew, the more my father would verbally and physically abuse me, especially after he’d been drinking. I reacted by dissociating, which only accelerated in my mid-teens. Alcohol became a way to numb my feelings, and later I’d rely on prescription drugs like Xanax. I stayed that hurt kid most of my life, and it prevented me from being an adult. Now I know dissociation was a trauma response.

When I finally left home, I was an empty shell—no identity, no personality. I didn’t know how to take care of myself and I drifted. My life up until then had been all about surviving from one day to the next. I believed I only deserved dysfunctional, toxic relationships, including those in work environments. But I never connected my feelings about myself with having been adopted. I thought I was a failure and unworthy of unconditional love.

In September 2006, while I was visiting my mother, she casually handed me my adoption documents. The first page contained the court decree. It stated that David Lee Carroll would now be known as David Raymond Brown. The shock of that news was a gut punch, and I threw up. I joined an adoption registry at adoption.com, but received no response. I didn’t aggressively search for my birth parents, and although DNA testing became available in 2012, I didn’t test. I was afraid to find birth family. I was afraid I wouldn’t be enough and that they, too, would be disappointed in me or might reject me—a secondary rejection.

But then I read Dani Shapiro’s “Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love”—in which she discovers after taking a DNA test that her dad wasn’t her biological father and she searches for and finds the man who was. I’d always felt incomplete, so I put aside my fears of rejection and took a risk. I took an AncestryDNA test, but I didn’t consider the emotional impact of what I might find.

On July 27, 2019, while I was on the treadmill at the gym, I got a text from Ancestry DNA. My results were ready to view online. I got dizzy and almost fell; I hit the emergency stop cord and sat down. I had a first cousin match and I messaged her immediately. A couple of minutes later, she responded. There would be many phone calls and trading of pictures before I realized I’d struck gold. I was in a state of shock, and seeing pictures of my bio father I got the whole meaning of genetic mirroring for the first time. I could see myself in him, a genetic connection. But I didn’t know for sure if he was my father. My paternal first cousin put me in touch with someone I’d later learn is my half-sister, who agreed to take a DNA test. And five weeks later, Ancestry confirmed that we shared the same father. I also learned I have two other sisters. It was overwhelming; I had to walk away for a few weeks. I felt like I was coming apart at the seams.

So, who was this man? Who was my bio father, and was I like him? Did I have his traits?

As I came to know more about my paternal family, I discovered a history of addiction and mental health issues. Learning about this medical history gave me insight into my struggles. Knowing about it sooner might have saved me a lot of wear and tear.

I also learned my biological father was a fraternity party boy with a reputation for being a jokester in front of an audience. But he often was the butt of the jokes, which was painful to learn because I, too, had been laughed at when I thought I was the life of the party. My sister gave me a photograph of him wearing fluorescent orange shorts and holding a beach umbrella; I couldn’t accept it. It wasn’t what I wanted to remember and it was an unpleasant reminder of all the embarrassing pictures of me.

I also learned my biological father had been physically abusive toward one of my sisters, which made me physically sick. It hit a nerve because it reminded me of my painful past. I don’t think any of my sisters fully recovered, and I am only now able to live free of the traumatic memories of growing up.

Over the past two years, learning about my origins and my genetic inheritance has helped ground me. It’s been painful finding the truth, but I am no longer that hurt boy. I am the cycle breaker. I’m grateful I didn’t have children. I might have passed down the generational trauma. I couldn’t risk anyone else’s life. Honestly, I was hoping my bio father would be more, and maybe that’s like my adoptive dad wanting me to be more. I think all these desires were unrealistic.

I carry my ancestors inside me. I bear my biological father’s genes and the imprint of my adoptive father’s abuse and disappointment. But I am not either of my fathers. I am my own man.David Sanchez Brown is retired and living in San Jose, CA, with his partner. In 2019, he created a blog, My Refocused Life Adopted, to document his adoptee journey to find his lost identity. You can follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to read about his journey.Severance is  not monetized—no subscriptions, no ads, no donations—therefore, all content is generously shared by the writers. If you have the resources and would like to help support the work, you can tip the writer.

On Venmo: @David-Brown-0516BEFORE YOU GO…

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By Sarah Blythe ShapiroWhenever I tell this story, there’s always the same reaction: “I don’t know what to say.” And who am I to blame them? How could they? I wouldn’t either.

Sometimes, I still don’t.

I’ve always known. From my earliest waking memories, I knew I was special; I knew that he was special too. Because he was a donor, and I was a donor child, in our unusualness I had a bond with this mystery man. But I didn’t know who he was, and he didn’t know I existed.

When you’re a donor child with a single mother by choice, something can happen. There’s a certain void. An abyss. Not a crater, because that would imply something was once there. You feel empty. You feel lonely. You didn’t have a choice. In this situation, everybody but you had a choice.

Let’s backtrack. It’s April 2018, and I’m lying on my stomach, stretched out on the stone-cold floor of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, on a retreat. Only three months until my 18th birthday. We were told to take some time to write and meditate. I’d been meaning to write this letter. Now I finally have time to do it. “Dear Dad.” No, that’s not right. Wait, yes it is! “I love you!” “Please love me!” “Please…want me.” Want me, goddammit.

I never sent the letter. My 18th birthday arrived. Finally. I reached out to California Cryobank. The deal is that you get three tries to reach out; if the donor never responds, you aren’t allowed to facilitate contact ever again. And the donor has a right to his anonymity. Anonymous until 18. But he still has a right to turn you down when you turn 18. Such a bright age, 18. Shiny, almost. Full of promise and potential. Hope for the future.

I never heard back, so I figured he hadn’t received my letter or wasn’t interested, and I went off to college, determined to immerse myself and desperately trying to flee from heartbreak. And I didn’t hear back from him. Not then. But I did hear from someone just as interesting.

A half sibling. And then another half sibling. And another. And another. Every week, a new sibling posted in California Cryobank’s Donor Sibling Registry, and I reached out to them. Since I was raised an only child, to suddenly become one of 10 is mind-boggling, to say the least.

But this story is about Caveh. Caveh and Sarah. Father and daughter. He might not agree with that terminology, but after all, he is my father. No, he didn’t raise me, but everyone has two genetic parents, and he’s one of mine.

In late September 2018, I got the call. A third-party mediator informed me that he was interested in contact. For several months we went back and forth over email as Sarah and “C.” All I knew was that he was a married filmmaker with two young children and had never been contacted by donor offspring before. He wanted to maintain anonymity in case I was nuts, which was both understandable and frustrating because I know I’m not nuts. I half-expected a “welcome home” greeting and a general eagerness to know me. I kept thinking that if I was in his shoes, I would be amazed and excited to know that I had helped to produce this young adult. But he was nothing of the sort. Caveh was very uncomfortable with communication for several months and hurt my feelings by continuously distancing himself from me. He acted as if this was an organ or blood donation and not a sperm donation. As if he hadn’t realized that sperm creates children who become adults with their own minds and experiences.

But I still wanted to know him.

In all honesty, I figured out who he was before he told me. After being tipped off that he worked at a school in the Tri-State area, I naturally looked up all 96 New York City universities and colleges. Hunched over my laptop on the floor of my dorm at 3 AM and about halfway through the list, I finally found him. After confirming the ethnicity of his surname, I just knew. That’s my dad. That whole night was a blur, but I do remember calling my mother, intermittently crying and laughing hysterically.

Some of you may find this an overreaction. To you, I say: you cannot know how it feels unless you experience it yourself. If there’s one word I can use to describe my Nancy Drew-like discovery, it’s “relief.” Even though he wasn’t the person I had hoped he was, the bolded, italicized question mark of my life—Who the hell is he?—was answered with a resounding exclamation point. He’s a famous filmmaker!

A little background on Caveh: born in Washington D.C. in April 1960, Caveh Zahedi is an Iranian-American avant-garde filmmaker who prides himself on his commitment to truth, whatever it takes. In his case, truth resulted in the end of his third marriage with his compulsive need to film literally everything. But Caveh is passionate about his work and is nothing if not a risk-taker. There are a lot of people out there who love his stuff. Man, is it weird having a famous dad.

After he finally revealed his identity to me, we first met in September 2019 in Chicago at a film screening. He flew there from NYC (my birthplace, by the way) and I took an 8-hour Megabus from St. Olaf College to meet him. We had agreed that our first encounter should be filmed, to be made into a documentary. Caveh apparently has a database full of fans hoping to get the call that he needs them for his films in some capacity. So when he asked, three eager crew people showed up with equipment—working for free—and completely unaware of what they were about to film. They just hoped it would be interesting.

They weren’t disappointed.

The whole night felt surreal. We filmed for three hours; hell, we even had a drone follow us in a park as we walked side by side, “bonding.” It was pretty awkward trying to fill the time and keep up a dialogue. But I won’t talk much about that. You can see the film for yourself when it comes out. Just look for “I Was A Sperm Donor.”

The most memorable parts of the night for me happened off-camera. After our filming session, we retreated to another filmmaker’s apartment to watch the first two seasons of “The Show About The Show.” At one point in the show, Caveh recounts the filming process in “I Don’t Hate Las Vegas Anymore.” Sharing some cashews from the vending machine, he leaned over to me, pointing, and said, “that’s your grandfather.” Both the grandparents I knew were dead. But being reminded, just for a moment, that I have more family out there, including two other grandparents, that was a blessing.

The other special moment happened after 3 AM (both Caveh and I are night owls). He walked me to my car to say goodbye. There was a lot of shuffling and twitchiness and not a whole lot of warmth. But we both noticed the chalky full moon. As he walked away, I watched his narrow, suited figure slip away, with the same moon watching over us both. I had the urge to take a picture and capture that moment, but I was afraid he would look back.

So, where are we now? Most recently, we’ve been editing “I Am A Sperm Donor” together. While watching clips of our film, I had the chance to watch myself. Hair done up in pin curls, makeup on, beaming. When Caveh opens the door and asks if he can give me a hug, I let out this little girlish giggle—so eager to please—and say, “yeah!” Willing to do just about anything for my dad. Seeing this from the outside, I am struck with a pang of grief. Grief for that little girl who missed out on all the daddy-daughter dances and first introductions of her new boyfriend and graduations with her dad standing in the audience, waving proudly. I deserved a standing dad.

You know, I had planned for this essay to also address all the reasons why donor anonymity shouldn’t exist: there is no way to prevent a donor lying on an application and there’s no limit to how often a donor can donate at many clinics. Anonymity deprives donor offspring of important medical information, such as risks for potential cancers and genetic disorders, and half-siblings run the risk of committing incest if they don’t know they’re related. The list is endless.

But somehow I realized that the primary point I want to emphasize is the relationship you lose out on when your donor is anonymous. There’s no one to whom to attribute that dark, curly head and olive skin and those almond-shaped brown eyes. And where’d you get that tiny figure with no hips? And why are you so assertive and reckless and obstinate? Certainly not from Mom’s side of the family. The closest comparison I can make is to phantom limb syndrome. You feel this burning pain where one of your legs used to be (though I suppose I was never born with that leg) and the only way to quench the pain is to hold up a mirror to your other leg to trick your mind into believing you have full function of both limbs. That’s what it’s like growing up with a single mom; especially one who tries her best to be both mom and dad. But when you find your father, it’s like you’re finally fitted with a prosthetic and you’ve been given a chance at approaching a normal life. You’ll never have two real legs, but other people might think you do and eventually you’ll start to believe you do, too.

Caveh and I don’t have a great relationship, and it’s strange and awkward and uncomfortable and not warm. But there is also a beauty in having shared this experience with him, of having met—father and daughter—for the first time. I am grateful for the circumstances, and I am very curious to see how our relationship unfolds in the coming years, but it’s not a picture-perfect story. This is really meant to describe the grief and repercussions of not having met your bio parent, and the completely earth-shattering and ambivalent emotions that occur when you find out that the person is not at all how you pictured. I couldn’t have written about how grateful I am to have met him and how happy I am to know him, since that would be a lie. And if he said that, it would be a lie too.Sarah Blythe Shapiro is a 20-year old student from Wilmette, Illinois, conceived by donor sperm and raised by a single mother by choice. She has always known she was donor conceived. Her mother used an Open ID at 18 donor, since known donors were not available at the cryobank. Since discovering that her donor is a famous filmmaker, she has found 14 half-siblings. Shapiro is a passionate advocate for the rights of donor conceived people and is hoping to encourage families and donors to prioritize the needs of their donor conceived offspring. She actively works to explore the intersectionality of donor conception as it pertains to both LGBTQ fertility rights and racial biases of cryobanks and clinics.Severance is not monetized—no subscriptions, no ads, no donations—therefore, all content is generously shared by the writers. If you have the resources and would like to help support the work, you can tip the writer.

On Venmo: @sarahblytheshapiroBEFORE YOU GO…

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

• Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.
• Let us know what you want to see in Severance. Send a message to bkjax@icloud.com.
• Tell us your stories. See guidelines. 
• 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.
• Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @Severancemag.