Michael A’s DNA Surprise

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Speaker 1

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Speaker 2

I was hospitalized in March of 2019 and Karen is very outspoken and very well answer questions that sort of thing.

So I'm in the hospital and the doctor comes in and he's just asking general doctor question and so he does what about your dad.

Did your dad have any, any health issues and before anybody could speak?

Candice, yeah, dad had cancer.

He died in You fix, he had cancer and I looked and I said we don't have the same dad and the doctors face you would have thought.

I just said, blown up the whole family mystery.

The doctor says he looked horrified and I said, it's okay.

I said she is still getting used to it as am I.

We do not have the same father and, you know, of course the doctor was I think was quite pleased with that information, but that's just an example of, you know, it's taking awhile towards the rear.

Eli's, you know, that we are different in some way.

Imagine spitting into a tube, sending off your DNA.

And unknowingly turning your life upside down for me and thousands of others.

This is our reality, I'm your host Alexis ourselves in July of 2021 I discovered that I am an NP e.

Someone who is experienced a non paternal of In other words, my biological father isn't who I thought he was this podcast shares.

The journeys of people who were shocked by a DNA Discovery.

Mostly through Modern DNA testing.

We're telling the stories of NP, he's adoptees and donor conceived people and their families.

This is DNA surprises.

Before we begin this week's episode, I want to add a Content warning that there are references to mental health, depression and suicide in this episode.

If you or anyone, you know are struggling with thoughts of suicide or self-harm please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at one.

Eight hundred, two, seven three, eight, two, five, five.

Michael had long suspected that he was an N PE but it took decades for him to learn the truth.

By the Time, Michael learned about his father, both of his biological parents had Alzheimer's and were unable to answer his questions in this episode.

He shares about how his new relationships are progressing.

His healing process and his mental health.

Thank you, Michael, for sharing your story,

Michael Allen.

I'm 55 years old, and I'm from Richmond, Virginia.

The official date was October 16th 2017, but it is something that I've suspected for primarily the most of my adult life when I was younger in the, say, the 12 to 14 year old age, I was the biggest in back then, biggest was described as tallest.

But I was the biggest person in the family and so, even with my brothers it would be a big joke when I would be with them.

And they would say, hey, this is my little brother and then the little brother is bigger than them even though they were considerably older than me.

And so that was, that was kind of weird and you know, you're not real sure.

What's going on at that point in your life, but you just kind of felt like you a little bit out of sorts so to speak.

And so, as time went on, When I was 22 years old, my son was born.

And when he was born, I looked at him and I looked at his mother and I looked at myself and I could see how his mother, and I created him and how it all kind of fit naturally, whether it was hair color or skin tone or something of that nature in.

So that just added to my suspicion, that something Just doesn't add up that something was amiss if you will.

And so as time went on, you know, back 33 years ago when he was born, you know, DNA wasn't as prevalent as it is now and it certainly wasn't commercialized as it is now.

And so there's really no resources nor did I have the gumption to go out and find it.

And so Tom just went on and periodically throughout my wife.

Would ask me, very casually.

Has anybody ever told you?

You don't look like the family and, you know, after a while, I would just say yes.

I've been told that so I started dating my current girlfriend Kimberly 12 years ago and when I started dating her she said the same thing.

She asked me the same question that anyone ever told me, I didn't look like anyone in my family and of course I shared with her.

That in fact I had been asked that but then, you know I told Her that I had never talked to anybody else about it.

And so when when the 23andMe and ancestry commercialize testing became more and more prevalent, my two sisters that I grew up with even though they're considerably older day.all into the DNA, they were all excited about it.

In the background and be, hey, you know, did you know that we were x amount in European and did you know that we had ancestors?

He's from, you know, ABC country, etc, etc, and none of that really interested me.

But they were all about at some point in time, my sister Karen called me.

I was living in North Carolina at the time and she called me and she said, hey if I paid for the DNA test, will you take it?

So I said yes and I hung the phone up, a literally hung the phone up and called my girlfriend and my exact quote was Shit's getting ready to hit the fan.

Wow.

And I told her about my conversation with pear.

You know, time went on.

And this was in 2017 and so, the results came back.

So then when the results came back, he runs like, hey, you can share my results and I'll share my results and we can compare an eccentric cetera, when Karen and I shared profiles, but each other, I would ask her stuff that I knew she didn't have an answer to.

I, you know, I was just getting example, like I said, hey cousin, Tommy how Come, come cousin, Tommy shows up on yours, but he doesn't show up on mine.

Why would that be?

And then I said, who's this Tracy, girl, I said this Tracy girl.

She's on mine.

She's pretty high online, but she's not on yours.

Why is that?

Well, my sister when you stomp her, she gets really, really quiet.

I mean, really, really quiet.

And I stomped.

And so, at some point, we ended that conversation and I don't know the exact time frame, but it couldn't have been more than a couple weeks.

Karen calls me and my girlfriend.

I can't believe we were in Virginia Beach and we were having lunch adjust that down, eat lunch in the phone rang, and I was like, well, I'm not gonna answer that and then immediately rang a second time and honestly, I'm not going to answer that.

That immediately ring a third time and I still, oh my goodness.

Something must be wrong with Mom.

Because Mom at that time, before she passed away, Liz.

So I answer the phone and she said, are you with Kimberly?

And I said, yeah, we're sitting here he wants together.

If she starts crying, she says it's true.

We don't have the same biological father and my exact words to her were.

It's okay, I've known my entire life.

Now once that happened, I did later go through the different stages of grief.

I went through, not so much denial, but I certainly went through, anger.

I went through blame because I blamed her and my other sister, Bonnie.

That certainly They must have known something.

Since there is so much older than me, certainly they knew something and they swore, and they still to this day say they never had a clue.

Never had an inkling about it and I do believe them

how much older than then you are they

12 and 14 years.

You

had suspected all along and when you kind of pose those questions to your sister, instead of telling her, did you want her to reach her own Illusion, or why did you kind of pose it as a question to her about the results?

I think, because I was petrified for one because I didn't know what kind of reaction anyone but have to this in.

If there was some logical explanation for why this was showing what it was, I didn't want to be accused of perhaps thinking I want didn't belong to Dad only to be later to proven that I was wrong and I really Did belong to him and he was going to find the answer.

I knew that and in fact, she was extremely instrumental in me, finding my bio I call him bio dad, my dad grew up with his Dad and then my bio dad and that's how we differentiate it.

Hmm.

But she was extremely beneficial and what-have-you was helping me find bio dad

once it was kind of out in the open.

What did you do next?

Did you ask your mother?

Mom for the truth.

Did your mom

know?

I did not ask Mom at that time.

Mom had Alzheimer's and she died about eight months later, give or take and quite honestly, I was too afraid to ask her.

I was petrified to ask the mom and I or a we were extremely close.

Extremely close.

I was a consummate mom was worried.

The Charles part of that was because I was the baby part of that because of the circumstances, I was essentially an only child living in the house.

From the time I was in second grade on.

I was virtually an only child because I was the only one that lived there.

And so Mom and I were extremely close, one thinks given all the siblings of there was five of us together.

We were all there and they were just keys and Mama gloves.

Like, who's your favorite child?

Who's your favorite child?

Hey Mom.

I'd say all the proper things, you know.

I love all my children equally.

They're all wonderful people.

And I can't choose one over the other and they kept pressing her.

Finally.

She said Michael, it's Michael, he's my favorite.

And it didn't upset anyone because everyone knew everyone already knew that answer.

So no one was upset, nobody's feelings got hurt because that's exactly what they expected her to say.

So I was too scared. to ask her one because of her mental health of mental capacity at that time into, I just didn't want to Lose what I had for 51 years.

You never spoke to your mom about it.

You said your, your sister helped you track down your bio?

Dad, how did you kind of put those pieces together without talking to your mom?

About what happened before you were

born?

Okay?

So Karen came to me and she said, you know, I've been researching this and because she was so much Familiy, more familiar with DNA anyway because they had been all about it prior to this discovery.

She was certainly more familiar with the system, more familiar with what it offered, what you could find out those sort of things.

So she calls me one day and she says, I've been doing some research and I think I've got it narrowed down to the family and I said, okay, she says, it's either going to be one or two broke one.

Two brothers.

Or the oldest son of one of those Brothers.

I said, okay.

And I was like, how did you come to this?

And she went through the science part of it.

The best that she could to describe it to me.

And so, at that point, I decided that I would reach out to Tracy.

Who was the person who was the highest on my list that was not on anyone else?

So I sent Tracy on message and just to briefly explain the situation and she almost immediately came back to me.

She says I have no idea but I'm going to put you in touch with my dad.

I said okay that'd be wonderful.

So at some point in time moving forward, her dad contact me.

His name is Steve first by email and then later we talked on the phone, But he contacts me by email.

And he says, I understand that my uncle or my dad or is the father of you and I said, yeah.

So what he did was I said if I pay for a test, will you take the test?

Well but hopeful Pat is his name.

He says, I think it's going to be packed and I said, okay, can you put me in touch with somebody there?

So they put me in touch with cousin Pat and cousin pack calls me and I'll never forget Get it.

I was sitting there I was eating dinner in a restaurant.

All by myself in the phone rings and Pat said I'm out here that we might be brothers and honestly well I don't know, I said, but here's the situation and so I said the same thing about I said if I pay for a test will you take the test?

He said, absolutely I will do that.

So we arranged for the test and when he came back and he came back and showed me show that he was a cousin Of mine as opposed to a half brother.

I remember my very first reaction was, I'm so glad it's not his brother.

Because his older brother would have been about 20 years younger than box and emotionally and mentally.

I had a real problem back and so I was thankful that it wasn't him.

They called him but I was thankful it wasn't but and I was saying for the past for taking the test so at that point once that came back, I reach back out to Steve and I asked Steve same thing again, I said if I pay for the test well, You take the test and I'll never forget what Steve said who he does.

I don't need the test.

He goes, you look more like Dad than the rest of us and it better about forward me.

And I said, just for my own satisfaction.

Will you still take it?

And he said, yes, I'll take it.

And so he took the test and course he came back.

This shows that we share the same father.

And so that's kind of how that all occurred.

I mean, you have to have a little bit of luck along the way.

Certainly Tracy taking the test, was some luck, the long way, but the other kind of funny part that I later found out about was Tracy, was given the DNA test as a gift from her mother-in-law.

And she really had an this is according to Tracy's, she really had no interest in taking, it had no interest in doing it.

But she took It because it came from her mother-in-law and you know got to keep peace in the family guys.

And so she took the test and luckily she did and so that was really the big break that with me to find it.

It is amazing how it's just all these kind of coincidences that can help lead you to solve the mystery of you know who is the biological father in these

cases.

Right.

Absolutely.

So after you connected with your brother, ER, how did you move forward where you interested in pursuing?

A relationship

with that one first was finding out medical history?

That was number one.

I had come to the conclusion at a very early on that, I might get rejected and I had to be ready for that.

So, mentally was I ready for it?

I don't know, but in my head, I said I was ready for it that if I was rejected then then that's just the way it was going to.

So after it was confirmed, Steve is the second oldest.

Patricia is the oldest and so Patricia calls one night and we're talking on the phone and of course any time during this whole process anybody's story or Discovery you know it's always the what if so how does this happen or where did this happen or what were the circumstances surrounding its you know, it's the million questions that we all go through that, you'll never know the Sir to absolutely, we'll never know the answer.

And so Patricia calls me and you know, she introduces herself that I've never spoken to her, never emailed, what or anything like that.

And so we talked and she says, I want to tell you something.

She said, I read the email traffic between you and Steve, and I want you to know that our dad worked for the City of Richmond.

No, my mom worked as City of Richmond for some 40 plus years and I was like, oh, really?

And she's like, yes, he does.

I'm thinking.

That's how they met.

And so I was like, well, to be honest with you, I have no better series and that.

And so, in the, in the time frame matches up, the mid-60s is when he worked for the city, and my mom was a full-time.

My mom worked full-time outside, the home, even, as far back as the 60s So she was certainly out of the norm so to speak to that time period.

But she did work outside the home full-time Patricia.

I had a really good conversation and so that was really the I guess first kind of question that perhaps we had an answer to outside of obviously who love our dad was.

So we move forward.

So now there's there's four of them, I grew up the youngest of five.

There's four of them and I think it's kind of funny.

I get a little chuckle out of it, but I actually have a brother named Michael.

Oh, but he has chosen not to meet me or has taken head and taking the time to meet me when he was in the area Etc.

And then I have a young fer half-sibling Carol and so out of the four of them, the two oldest have accepted me accepted the circumstances we have dinner together, perhaps once a quarter or so I have regular contact with them.

I'll just randomly asked Some questions.

Goodbye.

Her dad owned a motorcycle.

Yeah, bio dad, have dark skin or light skin.

Just very random questions, right?

Out of the blue.

And they will always answer me, where's the two youngest Carol?

And Michael have chosen not to have anything to do with me at this

moment.

Hmm, have they given any indication of

why?

Well, I was told all along that Michael would love to be Bio dad died a year ago in September and Michael lives in Florida.

And so Michael came up for the funeral and they said, you know why he's here certainly he'll want to meet, you certainly don't want to meet you, you know.

I don't know everything that's going on in his life but at that time, was not a good time and so he chose not to make arrangements and they make time to see me or meet me.

Nor has he reached out at the at the urging of Patricia and Steve says, far as Carol was concerned, all I understand from Carol is that she was a daddy's girl and her daddy would never do that.

And I 100% understand that because my mom would never do that.

You know, I know, you know, in my heart, my mom would never do that.

And here we are at half, I have nothing to gain by pushing, it pushing the issue, but I do want to definitely mention when when bio dad died Steve and Patricia Teeter.

They told their family.

They said Ewing Funeral homes going to be from 2 to 4.

And if you had no interest in meeting Michael or his girlfriend Kimberly, you need to be out by 4:00 and so about 4:05, Patricia text me and she said, Okay Michael it's okay to come in and so it allowed us to go in and it allowed me to grieve the best.

I could at that point, I had had two conversations with bio Dad but he had Alzheimer's and he was also why?

And so he had no clue who I

was.

He didn't have any real memory or anything of your

mom.

Well, there's a little bit of a funny story that it first Steve is married to Diane and Diane in a strange way reminds me of my mom and I'll tell you how Mom knew so much history about the dying is the same way with the family that she married in to keep, you know, so much about that family that if I want a quick answer and I need an answer just to satisfy my own curiosity.

It's dying that I text and so it was Diane and Steve that said, hey would you have any interest in meeting?

And so the truth is not to accompany us but died. it took me and it was just me and her And we went to the nursing home where he lives, you know, like I said, he was blond, they had Alzheimer s but I was absolutely fascinated to sit there and talk to him because you're probably familiar with Alzheimer's, patients in that, they have long-term memory but they don't know what they had for breakfast this morning and him and I sat there and talked and it was so fun.

It had so much fun in there every once in a while.

He would say now who are you again?

And I would always just say my name is Michael and I'm a friend of your son Steve and he goes oh oh oh okay, okay.

And then we go back to talking the first visit.

The first thing he said, I asked him.

I said when you were a little boy, what did you like to do for fun?

And he said, baseball football, basketball, it involved the ball I was playing and that was me as a child that was me as a A child.

I was the kid that never left the house without of all or glove, or a bad or to where we were going.

So after that, visit Kimberly, and I arranged to go, see and so Kim, when I go to the nursing home, and we go into his room and he's not there and they're like, oh, he's down at the barber, get his haircut.

Okay, let's go over there.

So we walk in and the barber goes, they called bio Dad, they called him bulbs and when know when I walked in the barber said, Bob's that must be your son because he looks exactly like you.

It's so we kind of got a kick out of that house.

No, no bugs.

You know, Bobby, I didn't react to it, he didn't say who is it?

You know, none of that registered with him, but for him to say, Say that I thought it was quite funny.

And so, anyway, you know, he finishes with his haircut and they allowed us to take him back to his room.

And so, at that point, I decided I would basically, for lack of a better way of saying, I would play 20 Questions with him and I was going to videotape it.

And so, I videoed it and so I said, hey, um, Steve tells me, you used to be in the Coast Guard, he goes?

Yeah, I was in the Coast Guard and I said, well, how long were you in the Coast Guard?

He's a while two or three years.

Oh, okay, it's possible.

Steve told me, you used to work at rentals.

Aluminum, he goes.

Yeah, I work there and I said, well, how long do you work?

There was two to three years.

So then I said, Steve We used to work for the City of Richmond.

He said, yeah, I want to be a city of Richmond Palace course.

I said, how many years, how long you work anywhere else for three years?

So I said, you know, what's really funny.

I said, my mom worked for the city of rich and he was like, she did off, I guess she really did.

He just, what was her name then?

I've got it on video and I've shown Steven Patricia and dying.

He stopped right in his tracks.

And then he finally said, I feel like I know that name from my past but I can't put a finger on it and it was a who's who of pretty neat moment, actually, to be real honest with him.

You're pretty neat

movement.

Yeah, it's like some validation.

Probably, that was the last time I was able to see him because he eventually died in September of 2020.

That was kind of crazy.

I'm sorry for your loss.

I'm sure though.

It was great.

That you were able to actually get to connect with him.

Him before he passed and have some of those answers and get to kind of sit with him and see him even if it wasn't necessarily his, you know, full self in the room with

you.

And he, you know, I got I got a picture of him, I have a, get a runny you all printed.

So I can keep track of my miles.

How many miles are running the given year and so the following year his picture and my picture on the front cover of that that book Steve And Diana's appreciate this been wonderful to me about it.

They've given me pictures along the way they allowed me to take these two VHS tapes and go have them converted over to a thumb drive.

So I could watch video of him as a young person.

That was pretty fascinating.

The one thing and I've never, ever, ever out of this whole process, I have never felt like I've missed out on something.

I've never felt like she they had a better life than me or any of that kind of thing because I had a good life.

But, you know, I had a good life, but I have to admit.

The one time I was jealous that Michael played in the 1967 World Series Little League, World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and bio dad was involved.

With his baseball and that was really, the only time I ever can remember being jealous because growing up, my dad was not involved with my life, he was there, he provided for us, he was never there emotionally, it was never there for you know, ballgames and but as a child he was not available so that was really the only time that I can say.

I got jealous.

Did your bad ever find out the truth?

Is he still alive?

No, my dad died in 1996 and okay, for a while there, there was a lot of anger.

I had because mom had 20 good years of sound, mental capacity, in which to sit me down and tell me the real story, and she chose not to.

But, you know, I have to realize at that point, the LIE has gone on for 30 years.

Why bring it up.

Now, what do we have?

The game by this, you know, and even 20 years ago, who would have thought DNA would have been commercialized where you could buy a kit and test yourself and have it sent off.

You know, people just didn't see that happening.

So I have to understand why Mom did what she did and just kept keeping that secret to herself and the best.

I can tell she felt that secret to her, just I call my Aunt, Judy mom, sister and ask her, did she know?

Anything about this and she said, Michael.

She says, I have no idea.

I've never that I did you.

That I had no idea.

And so, Mom didn't even tell the sister that she was close to, and then the other person and unfortunately she just passed away in the very recent past but she was kind of like the family.

Matriarch and so initially, no one knows how to handle this but initially they were, you know, Of the thinking we need to kind of keep this quiet because you know, it's embarrassing and it's embarrassing.

But Mom it.

We don't want to tarnish mom's name and that sort of thing.

And I did not get into it with them but I was quite angry by that because you know, I felt like this is my story.

It's not their story.

Well, my sister Bonnie was extremely close with my aunt who just recently passed away and she was dad's sister and so Bonnie.

It to her and ask her and told her the story and asked her, did she know anything and I'm so thankful for her because she told Bonnie, he would have treated me that way the way your dad treated that woman out of done the same thing.

And from that point on because she validated what Mom did it then became accessible to talk about, but that was so important that we had her validation that it was okay.

Okay to talk about and so you know, we kind of have been real open about it ever since that time.

And how do you think that being open about it has helped you on your journey since this

Discovery?

Well I think it I think, first of all, it it validates me invalidates me as a purse because you know what Mom did was wrong.

What bio dad did was wrong, the action that they did was a mistake but I don't look.

Soap as a mistake and I think some how had we had to continue to live this lives of family and keep it quiet.

I think it would have just eaten me to my core because I'm very open about it.

I talk to people about it.

Like I said, I've been in therapy for it.

I share my story.

I'm not afraid to share my story with people because quite honestly, we're going to find other people as we go.

Imperative for my own mental health that that would be acceptable to talk about what's in my own family, that I grew up with,

what's your relationship with your sisters?

Like now,

I wouldn't say anything has changed except for my behavior.

And what I mean by that is I think I'm more withdrawn than I was in the past.

Karen will tell you that when she was growing up and when I was born, I was basically a live baby doll to her and so Karen and I have been close my entire life and we're still close.

I don't want to imply that we're not but I will say that I don't have as much contact with hers.

I've had in the past even though we did spend Thanksgiving together, for example, but that's been more or less because of me and trying to do do what the emotional trauma to myself and not to others.

But I have to understand too that that they're grieving too and that's took me a long time to realize that because for a long time, I just thought my siblings just, you know, it they didn't it didn't really register with them because it didn't really affect them.

But as time has gone on, I realized that they also breathe because of what happened.

I'll tell you a funny little story because it is, it has taken us all a very long time to come to the realization of what happened.

So, and even the day before Thanksgiving of this year, we were we being Karen and myself.

We're talking and DNA came up again.

And she said, hey what's the difference is what's our father, look, on your profile, etc, etc.

And that just kind of more validated that you know people are becoming More and more accepting of what's happened.

And you know there's nothing we can do is nothing we can change.

Just that simple Act of right out of the gate acknowledging that we do have different DNA.

It was it was a very comforting feeling.

Oh that's that's really nice.

You know, I really liked what you said about recording your bio dad and literally, you know, videoing him so that you had that memory of that connection and I thought that was a really great idea.

Tia, and I know you touched on therapy, what are some other things that you've done to help yourself heal through this process?

I think the biggest thing for me is outside of therapy and I've had, you know, I've suffered from clinical depression, my entire life and so, you know, therapy is not new to me.

Nors anti-psychotic medicine so to speak, but the thing that's really Please the most is, I'll tell anybody who will listen and I tell them because not because I'm trying to embarrass mom or anything of that nature.

I tell them because it's simply makes me feel good to let my friends know the genuine Mike and that this is the real me and I have I've been very fortunate, you know, being on the Facebook groups, I hear some really, really negative thing outside of Michael and Carol choosing not to meet with me.

I have not had any negative experience.

Just what set?

I haven't had any friends.

Say anything that I thought was out of line.

None of my siblings.

I grew up with.

I didn't think I've ever said anything that, that is out of line.

So, to me, it's definitely talking about it and processing.

It has been the biggest thing for

me.

Definitely, definitely.

So where would you say that you are now with your journey?

Are you at peace?

Do you feel like you still have Our work to do where you at

currently we right now.

I'm worse than I was in 2017 when it was confirmed that I think looking back on that, I went through the initial shock of it, being confirmed went through the anger, and that sort of thing.

And then I suppress it, and I just suppress it expressed in suppress it.

And so, August 12th of this year was Your mom's death, she's been God's three years ago.

And five days after that, I went to the psychiatric ER and I said I need help.

I really need help here and you know, score states that me down.

And they said, okay, what's going on?

And one of the first questions was, when did you start feeling this?

And I said last Thursday and as soon as that word, Thursday left my mouth, I went that was August 12th.

That's the day, mom died, but it took me five days after that took to, for that, to come to life.

And so I was in a really bad place, emotionally and mentally and so they was referred to a program called partial hospitalization program PHP.

And basically what it is is you go to therapy group therapy Five days a week for 6 hours a day. and I went there and I really struggled, I was in, I did that for about five weeks or so every day and that was really difficult but during that period of time, Not only was I you know, getting over, you know, mom's death and then bio dad's death anniversary of his death came up while I was in that program and I was exhibiting A lot of anger toward Mom for not telling me for not trusting me to sit me

down and tell me the truth.

And so I went through really, really bad period of time where I just felt, you know, that everything he did.

He did a thousand good things for me as a child and as an adult also, but this counts as a hundred, a thousand and one bad thing because it was that big and so, This, you know, during the course of group therapy, processing it.

And what have you?

And then also, obviously individual psychiatric therapy is all along with a counselor.

I'm moving along, but I'm not where I need to be.

But I will say this, the last time that I spoke with my counselor two times ago or maybe three times ago, she had given me a worksheet.

It was an 11-page worksheet And about forgiveness.

And she said, I want you to read page one and I want you to answer the paper questions on page 2 and I said, okay, so our next meeting I said I'm not there yet, I can't do this.

I'm not ready.

And she said, okay, is everybody going to own timetable?

That's okay, second meeting after that.

I said well, I did go back and read page one again but I can't answer those questions on page so I can't do it.

She said, okay.

So this past week I met with her and I said I still haven't done that worksheet, I see.

But for the first time throughout this entire process, I'm ready to forgive mom for what she did and what she didn't do.

And I said I'm not far.

I'm not far enough along right now to sit down and do the worksheet.

But I am for far enough along now to say, it's only hurting me.

I'm the only one being hurt by hanging on.

To this and no matter how long I ain't going to it.

It's not going to change the situation.

It's not going to bring mom back.

It's not going to nothing's going to change by me holding on to it.

And so for the first time in this whole process, nothing once I get to that, that will be a huge step.

But I'm just not there yet, but I'm coming along.

I'm better than I wasn't August.

I wish you the best of luck, you know?

Just continuing.

And I think it's really Courageous that you talk.

So openly about mental health and seeking support.

I think it's, you know, can be Sosa stigmatized especially among men.

And so I think it's really great that you're setting that example and seeking help and support for yourself where you need

it.

You know one of the things that we do you know one of the things that we hear with in Pease all the time is the identity, the identity, we've all started in it.

So I was 35 years old before I found out that my grandfather who obviously turned out not to be my grandfather, but who my grandfather committed suicide, when I was four years old and I never do that was 35 years old before I found that out and the way I found that out was Mom and I were just having a general discussion and mom being a family patriarch.

Matriarch, like she was When that discussion came up, she said, well, I have his death certificate, let me go get it.

So she goes and calls a death certificate out of the file comes back, up the hallway and hands it to me, and I looked right on there and it's, it's suicide.

And honestly, I've never been told this.

I've never known this.

And so at 35 years old, I had already been in counseling and between Paul and one aunt, on Dad's side, that's where I thought Mental Health.

She's came from.

And so at that time my son was probably he would have been in his teen years that and so I made a commitment to myself that he wasn't going to live the rest of his life, not knowing that this is a problem, we need to address it.

And so since that point on him and I had a real will open relationship when it comes to mental health.

And that's something I feel very strongly about and, you know, it's to me it's no different.

Than if you have a bad back or you have a bad kidney or you have a bad knee, you know, I just have to have a bad brain and that's just the way I look at

Yeah, I think that's a really healthy perspective.

I want to ask you, what advice?

You might have for a parent.

Who is hiding a DNA surprise from their child?

What advice would you give them?

I would say that it's it's Paramount that if you have a loving relationship with your child and in your mind, you're doing everything else, right?

And raising that child, you must have this conversation with them.

Not not all ages are appropriate and you have to decide when that age is appropriate for them to be able to handle it, but I think it's absolutely imperative that you have it and it goes.

Is Way Beyond The Knowing medical history and all that sort of thing.

It's, you're living a lie and probably along the way.

You've probably taught your child, not to lie and you get your living, the absolute biggest lie, that that I can imagine.

And so, I think it's imperative that to be a good role model and and save your child's trauma.

You need to have that conversation at some point in their life,

what advice would you Give someone who just discovered that they are in NP

e.

Step back to take a breath, because one thing that in the short time that I've been introduced to other MP, he's everyone wants an answer right now today, and that's not possible.

It's the world we live in, you know, we live in the world of technology and the digital age where we can get instant answers and it's not something you can get an instant answer.

To.

And so, I think it's first thing you need to do is take take a step back and take a deep breath.

And try to process it.

The second thing I would encourage people to, to really think about is Understand that you're disrupting, somebody else's world also.

If and when you make contact with you biological father course, my logical mother's happen to but just not as frequently.

But when you reach out to that biological parent, understand that there's other wives are going to be affected and they're strangers to us.

Their absolute stranger stuff.

We don't have anything in common other than blood.

We don't have any of the common backgrounds and so, you just have to be cognizant of that.

And I think I have a had a little taste of both I've had, as I mentioned I've had two that have accepted me and I've had two that shows not to accept me.

And so I think I have a good perspective of that

Michael.

Thank you so much for being so generous with your story for talking about mental health and your journey, I wish you the best of luck as you continue.

Throughout this process and I just really want to thank you for being so open today.

Thanks for your time.

Thanks again to Michael.

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