By Kathleen Shea KirsteinAt the end of each Wednesday evening writing class, the instructor gives us a prompt to write on for the following week. She instructs us to write for 20 minutes and limit editing. We need to have the piece ready to read at the next class gathering. The last prompt was to write about “a lie I told.” I’ve never been good at telling a lie, so this was a hard assignment. When I was a kid, I got caught whenever I told even a little white lie. There wasn’t any point in lying, so I stopped. It took me a few days after getting the assignment to remember a lie I had told.

I needed a passport because I was planning to go to Cancun, Mexico in September 2005.  I applied and later received a letter in the mail saying my application was denied because I hadn’t submitted documentation to explain why my birth certificate was filed 14 months after my birth. The first call I made was to my mother to tell her my passport had been denied and ask if she knew why my birth certificate was filed so long after my birth. She said it must have been a clerical error and hung up. I called the town clerk’s office in the state where I’d been born. The person who took my call couldn’t help and advised me to contact the probate court. I called the court and was told to write a letter to the judge stating dates of the trip to Mexico, including the passport application denial and the reason for the denial. I was hoping the court could actually find the documentation explaining that reason. I wrote and mailed the letter the next day

After this experience, I began to wonder if I was adopted, so I left some messages on adoption reunion boards with basic information, such as the year and location of my birth, hoping to connect with someone who might have some information about me. At that point, I was willing to try anything. I just wanted an answer to this mystery. I’d mentioned to my family that I might take a day off from work and go sit at the Probate court to see if I could get an answer to my letter.

Then I had an idea. I’ve always gotten my medical care at the clinic in our town—the clinic where I’ve worked for years—so it occurred to me to go to the medical records department and review my chart. I spent my lunch break on August 22, 2005 reading my medical records. The first line of the last page in my chart—essentially the first page documenting my life with the Sheas—said “Adopted Baby, 4 lbs 4 oz.”  Finally, I had confirmation that I’d been adopted.

Armed with this new information, I called the probate court and asked them to search for my adoption records. Hopefully, with the information they contained, I’d then be allowed access to my birth certificate and could get my passport.

I scheduled a lunch meeting for two days later with our clinic psychologist to problem-solve how to approach my parents. Forty-nine years is a long time for them to keep the secret. I wondered what kind of defenses they’d built up. I wanted advice about whether I should tell them I knew I was adopted.

I was surprised when my Dad called me at work on the morning of August 24 and asked me to come over to the house right away. My intuition kicked in. Somehow, I knew my parents were going to tell me the truth about my birth. I grabbed a long stem red rose from the gift shop on my way out the door to give to my mom. Dad clearly remembered that I said that I might go to probate court to see if they would hear my case sooner. He must have realized I’d find out the truth, so he likely convinced mom they had to tell me and they had to do so that morning. They were not aware that I’d read my chart, so the timing of his call was coincidental.

I left work and arrived at my folks house a little after 9 am. Standing in the living room, Dad asked, “You know why you are here?”

“Yes, I said. “I’ve known since Monday I was adopted.”

Mom then told me that the state did home studies, even back in 1957, and that caused the delay in filing my birth certificate. She remembered that she wanted to make a good impression, and since she loved to sew, she made me a new dress for each meeting with the state worker. Once the home studies were satisfied and my placement approved, the court finalized my adoption when I was 14 months old with a little ceremony that changed my name. I can’t help but wonder if that’s similar to what happens when a person enters the Witness Protection Program. What did I witness that I needed protection from? My original mother?

My mother was upset. She told me the day I won the trip to Cancun was the worst day in her life, and that she felt like her life was over. I think in that moment our roles reversed and I became the mother, making sure she felt secure and nurtured. Nurturing was never her strong suit. She was better at keeping up appearances.

I reassured my parents and told them that nothing in our relationship was going to change, and it became my job in a way to forever prove my loyalty until they died.

And that was the lie I told. That nothing would change. Because everything changed.

I thought of them in a different light. That’s when I realized they’d kept me at arm’s length most of my life. Over the years, even my kids have observed I was treated differently than the sister I grew up—their biological child. The pedestal I kept my parents on began to crumble. When the truth came out, I kept thinking about how they lied to me on those occasions when I point blank asked if I’d been adopted. I was consumed with wondering how they could have lied for so long without giving something way, especially after I learned from my mother’s cousin that my mother had the entire town under a gag order. My friends all knew.

Looking back, I see there had been a few close calls when I was growing up. I worked in a multidisciplinary clinic as an oncology-certified RN and administered chemotherapy to patients. The time I pushed medication in to patients’ IVs was always a chance to chat and get acquainted. Talking to one patient, I mentioned that I knew her daughter-in-law. She asked what my parents’ names were, and when I told her, she said, “Oh, are you the one they adopted”? I said I didn’t know, but I didn’t think so. I called my mother that night to ask, but she insisted I wasn’t adopted. “People are always confusing us with a family in town that adopted a baby the same time you were born,” she said. I didn’t think my mother would lie to me, so I believed her. And I thought I had her hands and looked a little bit like her, so I trusted what she told me.

I wonder what would have happened if those close calls had been fully realized and if I’d pressed my mother harder. If I hadn’t blindly trusted my parents, would I have known sooner? Would knowing sooner have a made a difference? I didn’t realize it then, but I lied to myself and my parents that day in their living room when I told them nothing in our relationship would change.  Everything has changed. Nothing could be the same because the person I was changed in those moments.Kathleen Shea Kirstein was born in Vermont and raised in New Hampshire. She lives in Troy, New Hampshire. She’s a late-discovery adoptee, a mother of two boys, and a registered nurse.

By Brad EwellIn Facebook groups for people with not parent expected (NPEs) or misattributed parentage experiences (MPEs), there’s a consistent large difference in the ratio of men to women. If you were a man looking to meet women, this would be a place to be. There are typically a handful of men and thousands of women. Where are all the guys? Percentage-wise there couldn’t be that many more women than men having DNA surprises. So what’s going on here?

Looking at the bigger picture, this is a fairly common phenomenon among individuals with depression, anxiety, stress, and other mental health concerns. Several studies indicate that men are typically much less likely than women to seek professional help when facing psychological distress. The study authors suggest a number of factors for the disparity, such as the fear many men have of being judged as emotionally vulnerable or weak. Researchers also point to the fact that because men are trained from an early age to compete with other men, it makes them less likely to trust each other and reveal what they may perceive as weakness.

I posed the question to several individuals who not only are behavioral health practitioners but who also have personal experience with misattributed parentage. Their thoughts generally mirror the finding of the studies, but they offered additional insights.

According to Jodi Klugman-Rabb,* a licensed marriage and family therapist and licensed professional counselor, “Sometimes it’s as simple as the gender role conditioning specific to cultural norms that men are not manly if emotional. So expressing emotions is then seen as weak, making group process emasculating. On a more micro level, emotional process can have a lot to do with the family of origin dynamics and whether kids were allowed or encouraged to explore emotions safely, how cultural gender norms influenced that, and, to take it back out on a macro level, how these expectations were transmitted intergenerationally.”

Eve Sturges,* also a licensed marriage and family therapist, agrees. “Men,” she adds, “generally are taught to look for solutions; without a direct path, they often don’t understand the benefit.” Men view support groups as a place to talk about things, but they fail to see the benefit of the emotional burden that’s released when feelings are verbally expressed.

Men also fear that a vulnerable disclosure might disrupt the peace in their relationships, whether with their mates or family members or at work, according to Cotey Bowman,* a licensed professional counselor associate.

In order to make support groups more appealing to men, these professionals say, the stigma that prevents men from seeking support and expressing emotions must be addressed at a cultural level. Until this cultural change, the best option is to allow and encourage men to see other men model vulnerability and acceptance of emotions.

After reading the studies and talking to professionals, I can see myself and the culture I was raised in fairly accurately reflected in their comments. At 50 years old, I’ve been a police officer for half of my life. Police and other first respondors are notoriously emotionally restricted at work because the job demands it, explains Jodi Klugman-Rabb. It’s very difficult, she adds, “to ask first responders to compartmentalize at work but share at home. Most cannot walk both lines because our brains are not wired for that level of compartmentalization.” It’s an apt assessment of the people I work with daily.

I was raised in an environment where the expression of emotions was an indicator of weakness. As a result, I’ve grown into a person who is self-reliant to a fault. I try to avoid having people to do things for me because I don’t want to bother them or draw attention to myself. My dad taught me the importance of being self-sufficient and tough. When you get hurt, he said, you just “rub some dirt on it” and move on.

I vividly remember several instances in my childhood when my father imparted these lessons. Once, while building a fence, he accidentally nailed the palm of his hand to a picket fence with a nail gun. My job was to go to the other side of the fence, pull his hand off the nail, and get some duct tape so he could tape his hand up and finished the fence. Another time, he lost his balance while using a chain saw on a ladder and sawed through part of his thigh. Again, I was assigned to get the duct tape so he could tape himself back up and finish the job. (I think he got some stitches, but only after we finished the job). Finally, and most memorable, was the day he broke his leg. We were riding horses in a pasture when another horse came up alongside him. The horse tried to kick my dad’s horse, but instead kicked my dad in the shin. My dad grimaced. “We need to go back,” he said. “I think my leg is broke.” We rode back a couple of miles without him making a sound; he just wore that same grimace on his face. Once we got to the stalls, we tied up the horses, got in the truck, and started to the hospital. I was in middle school and had driven a few times around where we kept our horses but never out on the street. When we got to the road, my dad stopped and said, “If I feel like I’m going to pass out, I’ll just pull over to the side of the road and switch seats so you can drive me to the hospital.” He managed the 10-mile drive to the hospital, where he allowed me to grab a wheelchair to get him into the emergency room. Inside, I watched blood pour out when the nurses pulled his boot off. It turned out he had a compound fracture.

Clearly, reaching out to others for help is not something I was taught to do.

You may be wondering, then, how have I come to be writing an article about being emotionally vulnerable in groups? Given the way I was raised and the culture I grew up and work in, this is the last place in the world I’d want or expect to find myself. I don’t consider myself particularly weak or vulnerable. My job requires the opposite of me; I have to show courage and be strong for others. I had been in therapy once several years ago for help with some anxiety and stress issues, but my therapist had moved away and I felt better, so I didn’t take the time to find another one. I addressed it more as a strategy session than as therapy. I believe this is because, as Eve Sturges explains, I was looking for that step-by-step strategy to fix my problem and I didn’t view talking about my feelings as a useful part of the steps. I also told only a handful of people in my life that I had gone to therapy. This was intentional—a decision based on the fear of being emotionally vulnerable. I simply didn’t want to be viewed as weak and I believed that would happen if people knew I was struggling with my emotions.

So what went so wrong (or right) to bring me to the point that I’m sharing personal struggles and fears out in the world for other people to see? The answer is nothing. I finally realized no matter how much I wanted to believe I could deal with everything on my own, that’s not realistic. When I discovered that I’d been adopted, I was absolutely lost and felt totally alone. My wife was supportive, but there was no one who could really relate to the depth of loss that comes with such a discovery. My wife suggested I look on Facebook and see if there were groups formed by people who had experienced something similar. It sounded like a good idea, but I thought there would only be a handful of people at best who’ve gone through this. Instead, I found a community of thousands who have all experienced the same thing. So I lurked, devouring everyone else’s stories but not sharing my own. Over time, I observed more people sharing and receiving helpful and empathetic responses, which made me start feeling safe. And that feeling of safety finally led to me being comfortable enough to participate in the groups. I told my story to strangers who shared my experience and in return they gave me good advice and empathized. And I’ve taken it farther. Now I write about my experiences to a wider audience beyond the safety of private Facebook groups. In doing so, I’ve learned that sharing my stories has been deeply cathartic and healing. Every story I tell feels like a weight lifted off my shoulders.

As I talked to other men who have joined and participate in groups, I noticed their stories were similar to mine. They grew up learning to be self-sufficient and kept their emotions under wraps. I also noticed a common theme—a duty to keep family secrets private. I know there are many other men just like me trying to navigate their way through this NPE/MPE journey, many of them trying to go it alone. While there are likely a handful of people who can make this journey alone, I believe everyone can benefit from finding a community and experiencing its benefits.

My hope is that sharing this article and my other stories will let men know there’s a direct benefit from participating in Facebook and other support groups and sharing their stories. Cotey Bowman explains that when he works in group settings with men and is vulnerable himself, this modeled behavior is then reflected back as men in the group learn it’s safe to display emotions and vulnerability as sessions continue.Brad Ewell lives in Texas with his wife and three children. In 2019, he became a late discovery adoptee after taking a home DNA test. He feels he’s still very much in the middle of this journey and enjoys writing to help organize his thoughts and better understand his own story. Brad volunteers with Right to Know, a non-profit group dedicated to supporting people’s right to know their genetic identity. He’s told his story on two podcasts, NPE Stories and Sex, Lies, and the Truth. You can connect with him on Instagram @Brad1407, on Facebook, or email him at mpebrad@gmail.com.

Read more of his articles and essays: An Unexpected Abandonment, Dear Mom and Dad, and Watching and Waiting. *Eve Sturges is the host of a podcast, Everything’s Relative with Eve Sturges. Jodi Klugman-Rabb is the developer of Parental Identity Discovery and the co-host of the podcast Sex, Lies & the Truth. Cotey Bowman is the creator of the MPE Counseling Collective.BEFORE 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.

By Brad EwellThere are many NPE/MPE (not parent expected/misattributed parent experience) stories with one if not multiple layers of abandonment. It seems as if for many in this community it’s a fairly common part of the experience. I don’t believe my story is different from many others, but I only recently realized how much it’s still affecting me.

A week ago, my wife and I were sitting in the living room talking about a problem I was having with my adoptive mom. My adoptive dad had passed away about six months ago, and my mom has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She’s still in the early stages, but she calls multiple times daily wanting me to come over and help with various things or just keep her company. When I tell her I can’t, I often hear her sad voice saying, “I just wish you could help me.” As I was telling my wife about the latest call, I said, “All I really want to say is, ‘do you mean how you helped me after I found out that y’all adopted me?’”

My wife looked up at me and asked, “Do you know how bitter that sounded?”

“Yes, because I’m still bitter about it.” But it really wasn’t until that moment that I realized how it’s been eating at me for the last few months.

About a year and a half ago, after having taken an Ancestry DNA test, I learned from a biological family member that I’d been adopted at birth. I reached for confirmation to my mom and dad, who only then I realized were my adoptive parents. When we met to  talk though my discovery, they offered the standard responses most of us have gotten at one time or another: “Nothing has changed; we’re still your parents; what mattered is how much we loved you; we didn’t tell you because we didn’t want you to be hurt”—all of the things NPEs/MPE’s love to hear. I told them as far as I was concerned they still were my parents because they were the only parents I’d ever known, but that literally everything had changed. We talked for a while longer but never moved past the “nothing has changed” point.

After this conversation, things took an unexpected turn. I left believing our talk had opened the door to the truth and that now we could talk about it openly. Looking back, I see this was naive on my part; my parents had been secret keepers most of their lives and they managed to keep a pretty big one for 48 years. My parents decided after I left that they’d had enough of that unpleasant conversation and we would not be talking about it again; the only catch was once again they’d forgotten to tell me.

A few weeks later I began communicating with some of my biological family through text and Facebook Messenger. I typically talked to my parents about once a week, and whenever adoption came up they changed the subject. I did my best to not bring the topic up, but discovering I’d been adopted had been a life-altering experience, and keeping these contacts secret from them made me feel as if I were being unfaithful or disrespectful to them. I wasn’t trying to replace them, but I was feeling the strong, inalienable pull of biology; I wanted to know where I came from. So in order to keep the peace while I continued on my journey, I continued avoid the topic when talking with my parents.

A month later I made arrangements to meet a half-brother I’d discovered. As I was on the way to see him, my dad called me and asked what I was up to. I told him I was driving to meet a friend for dinner. When he wanted to know what friend, I told him it was someone he didn’t know. When he asked again, I mistakenly thought he’d changed his mind and wanted to know things. So I told him the truth. There was a pause, and I waited for any questions he might have now that we were going to talk about things. But all he said was, “Man it sure was hot today.” That really stung. But I agreed it was hot and told my dad I was almost at my destination and had better get off the phone. I still had a ways to go, but I just wanted to end the conversation.

That was first time I felt abandoned in my adoption journey. It wasn’t when I’d learned that someone had given me up as a baby and wondered what led to that choice. I’d learned the complicated story of my conception, and at 48 years old I could see the logic of and necessity for the decision. Instead, I felt abandoned by my adoptive parents when they refused to have anything to do with helping me navigate the mess they’d created. I know many NPEs and MPEs have had their parents reject them or their biological parents refuse to acknowledge them when there was infidelity in the story, but I didn’t anticipate that type of abandonment in my case. My parents just adopted a baby. One of my closest friends growing up—our whole families were friends—was adopted, and his parents felt no reason to hide it. To this day I just don’t get why my parents did.

My wife was wonderful and continues to be my rock through this journey, while my parents—who did a great job raising me—completely bailed on me when I needed them most. The hardest part about this was that it left a dirty feeling every time I met a biological relative. Since my parents and I weren’t going to talk about it, each time it felt like I was sneaking around and betraying them. Then, when we would get together, it was the elephant in the room. For months, I carried the guilt along with all the other new feelings.

Fortunately, this story has a somewhat happy ending. About a week before my dad passed, he’d been in the hospital. My mom and I would alternate nights staying with him. Once he woke up in the middle of the night and told me he thought he was dying. I asked if he meant soon or now, and he said now. I asked what he wanted to do, and he said “let’s talk.” After we talked for a few minutes he asked, “So what ever happened with the whole adoption thing?” I was completely caught off guard and told him I thought he didn’t like talking about it so I did my best not to bring it up. But now he wanted to know everything. For the next hour, I told him stories of the meetings, showed him pictures, and answered his questions. He seemed genuinely pleased and at peace with the information. At one point, after I talked about meeting my biological dad, he said, “Well you finally got to meet your dad … that’s good.” Hearing that broke my heart a little, and I told him I would always consider him my dad. After a while, he became tired and dozed off.  After that, we never talked about it again, but I finally had what felt like his blessing to continue on my journey and I was relieved of the huge burden I’d been carrying for months.

BEFORE 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.