Dana Schmalenberg’s DNA Surprise

This transcript was generated automatically. Its accuracy may vary.

Intro

If you've experienced Adna Surprise, you know that your emotions can range from shock to denial to grief to anger to confusion to joy and around again.

And sometimes it's hard to find people who understand this unique experience.

Sometimes we feel a little stuck as we navigate this journey.

That's why we created the DNA Surprise Retreat.

At the DNA Surprise Retreat, you'll enjoy 6 expert LED sessions to help you process your DNA Surprise.

You'll eat delicious catered meals.

And most importantly, you'll build beautiful friendships with people who understand you all in a stunning private ranch facility in the Arizona desert.

If you've had shocking DNA test results, know that you're not alone.

This retreat is for you.

Join us September 19th through the 22nd 2024 in Phoenix, AZ.

Registration is open now.

Reserve your space at dnasurpriseretreat.com.

I'll see you there.

Speaker 2

And I felt like a knife had been put into my stomach.

And I'm looking at her and she's holding his hand and I suddenly, have you ever seen that scene in Jaws where Roy Schneider's on the beach and they do that weird push, pull, focus thing where all of a sudden he's way back?

Speaker 3

Yes.

That's that's what I felt like.

All of a sudden.

I felt like I was like I was all the way back, looking from a distance at my sister with her father, and I was the interloper and it just lasted for a few seconds.

It was awful.

It's horrible.

Speaker 1

Welcome to DNA Surprises, a podcast that delves into the world of unexpected DNA discoveries.

My Story

I'm your host, Alexis Oursault.

In July 2021, my life took a surprising turn when I found out that I'm an NPEA person who has experienced a non paternal event.

In other words, my biological father isn't who I thought he was.

Join me as we explore the stories of NP ES adoptees and donor conceived people and their families.

Get ready to unravel the astonishing journeys that begin with a simple DNA test.

This is DNA surprises.

There is never a good time to discover the man you've called Dad your entire life isn't logically related to you.

But I imagine that having this realization as he lays in a hospital bed dying must be among the worst.

In the Season 7 finale of DNA Surprises, Dana Schmallenberg shares how she uncovered the truth that both of her parents held tightly until the day her father passed.

She reveals the shocking truth about her biological father, a man who fathered 9 other children, many of whom share strange similarities.

She also reveals how her DNA discovery LED her to a new career path and why she created a brand new resource for her fellow NP ES in Dana's past life.

She was a screenwriter, and her storytelling capabilities are clear throughout this episode.

In fact, I was so enthralled that I forgot to ask her the last two questions that I asked all of my guests Thank you for sharing your story.

Dana, My name is Dana Schmallenberg.

I'm 57 years old and I was born in Jacksonville.

I grew up in Ohio.

I spent the last 25 years in Los Angeles and I'm back in Jacksonville kind of full circle, even though I only lived here for six months when I was born.

Well, my DNA, surprise story, well, it has a bit of a flashback in it, but it starts with my dad, who in 2017 was in the hospital and he had had a heart attack years before and had been battling bad health like, you know, off and on for the last four years before.

My DNA Surprise Story

So in 2017, he just wasn't doing well at all.

My mom had him admitted to the hospital, or he, you know, got admitted to the hospital with congestive heart failure and other things.

He'd been in and out of the hospital before, and whenever he would go into the hospital, I would always drop whatever I was doing and like, fly from LA to Jacksonville, FL to be with, to be with him.

And he hated that.

I would do that, 'cause you know how dads are, they don't want to put you out.

But he would always kind of hem and Haw whenever I would do it.

And so the last two or three times he was in the hospital, he was like, don't come.

I'm gonna be out in two days.

So this time when he went to the hospital I just had a weird feeling about it And so I was Facetiming with my mom and I said put dad on.

I I need to take a look at him.

And so I looked at him.

My mom gave him the iPad and I and he was hooked up to oxygen.

And I and I as soon as I saw him I knew that it wasn't good And I said Daddy is it is it OK if I come and and he did something I did not kind of expect.

And he just nodded and the look in his eyes over the oxygen mask was just like I he it was I could just tell he wasn't coming out of the hospital.

So I got off the phone and I called my sister immediately and I said get on a plane.

Dad's in the hospital.

She goes, yeah, I know.

I talked to mom this morning.

I said I don't think he's coming out and she said really.

And I said Yep.

I I'm not.

I don't know why get on a plane.

She was in Ohio so she got on a plane.

I got on a plane.

We got there and within like half hour of each other we went directly to the hospital and he was still conscious, but he wasn't doing well.

He had some internal bleeding and they didn't know where it was coming from, but he was too weak to put him on the operating table to to look for where the bleeding was coming from.

So they were preparing to transfuse him.

And so the nurses come in, They have a giant, like a cart of bags of blood.

Now, if you've ever seen bags of blood, you know they always have the type really big on them, right?

They have like A or B or whatever.

And they had a whole tray of B bags.

And I knew that my father was the same blood type as me because seven years before, in 2010, I'd gone to this nutritionist and they had me on the eat right for your blood type diet.

And I'd phoned my parents, 'cause I'm very, very close with them.

And I said, hey, I'm on this diet.

Which one of you is a positive?

There's AI have a list of food we're not supposed to eat.

And my mom said, well, I'm O and my dad said I'm B.

And then I laughed and I said, well then I'm adopted because one of you two has to be the same blood type as me.

That's how it works.

And then my mom said, well, Fred, you're a positive.

You always forget.

And Dad, you know, kind of laughed And he said, Darlene, that's your job, to keep track of that stuff.

I don't keep track of that stuff.

He's like, hang on, I'll get a I'll get a piece of paper.

I'll write down all the stuff I'm not supposed to eat.

And so I gave him everything.

And, you know, my first clue should have been that my dad was writing down things he wasn't supposed to eat, 'cause, like, normally that not the kind of guy that's going to be.

Oh, yeah, sure, I'll give up chicken.

But he was, like, willingly writing all this health advice down, which he never took my health advice.

So he wrote all this stuff down.

So that's how I knew he was a positive, Right.

So flashback to 2017.

I'm trying to stop the nurses.

I'm like, no, he's a positive.

You have this wrong.

You cannot put B blood in him.

So they had to show me on the computer.

No, we we type.

He's been in this hospital before.

We type them before we do transfusion.

He's B and I was kind of confused, but I'm like, oh, OK.

It didn't make sense to me.

But I'm like, OK, you know, they they know what they're doing.

So they transfused him and he was OK for a little while, but then he started to crash again.

And this went on throughout the day, and he was aware enough.

He knew we were there.

He talked to myself and my sister and my mom.

We were all there with him.

And he knew he was.

He knew he was ill.

I I think he knew he was dying, but he was kind of, he was very weak because he had lost a lot of blood.

So he was in and out by by like 9:00 that night.

They came in and they told, they they took us outside and they said there's nothing else we can do for him.

His organs are failing.

He's lost blood.

He's too weak for us to get him on the table and we're going to bring in palliative care.

My mom didn't know what palliative care was and had to explain to her it's basically Hospice in the hospital.

And so she just couldn't believe it because she thought she was going to be able to take him home at the end of the week.

And you know it was such a turn of events and we were all kind of shocked and so we all went back in the room and we know we told the doctors and the nurses that we were gonna, we wanted to stay in the room with him And so they brought in like a pull out couch and they brought in a recliner and we just we just hunkered down and we just decided to just stay with him.

They started to give him morphine because he was he was in a lot of pain.

He couldn't breathe.

Well, I of course couldn't sleep.

And all through the night we were on this pull out couch and I just kind of watched him and he was, he was unconscious by this point.

But when you're with somebody you love and you've been told that they're not going to be around much longer, you want to hold on so tight to them, right?

And so we just like my mom and my sister and me just, we just sat around and like just looked at him, 'cause we he was like our guy, you know, Like we have a really close family.

My parents got together very young.

We were really tight.

Even though I lived in LA and my sister lived in Ohio and my mom and dad lived in Florida, we were really tight and this and my dad was only 73 and we did not expect to lose him this early.

So as we're all kind of like sitting around him, like my mom had been up for three days so she started started to fall asleep my my sister the same.

And I just feel something really weird and I can't to this day, I can't explain what it is.

But I remember just looking at him and just taking him in because I knew that probably by tomorrow he was going to be gone and my eyes travelled to this empty B bag of blood.

And then I remembered that conversation about mom and dad saying that my dad was A and I'm like why would they, why would they Wait a minute, he's A and I started getting confused and so I kind of woke my mom up a little bit and I said, hey mom, what's your blood type?

And she said, oh without even thinking.

And then I looked over at the B bag and the hair on the back of my neck started to stand up and suddenly every like my skin started to just like get tingly.

And I quickly googled blood type chart and what I saw was basically AB and an O can't make an A.

There's no way.

And I handed the phone to my mom and she said what am I looking at?

And I said, AB and an O can't make an A mom.

And she got tears in her eyes and she looked at me and she said, can we talk about this some other time?

And I, my gosh.

And I said absolutely.

And the look on her face it, you know, And here's the thing, like I was 51 years old.

Never in my life did I ever have a reason to doubt that that man was not my father.

My parents got together when they were 16 and 19.

They never divorced.

They never there was no, like, we we were like this boring family from Ohio.

Like we didn't have.

There was no drama.

There was.

And so when she said that to me, like I I immediately just when you get that news, you just start to kind of disassociate.

And I mean, how were you feeling?

I just, I cannot imagine you're sitting in the room with your dad who is going to die soon and you have just put it together that he is not your biological father.

It it felt like when I say I started to disassociate.

Have you ever watched a movie?

Have you ever gone to the to the to the theater and you watch a movie and the movie's over and you come out and you go to the bathroom and you still feel like you're in the movie in a weird way?

It felt like that.

It felt like suddenly I was in.

I was in that weird, like I was in a movie and I didn't want to be in that movie and I couldn't get out of it.

And my and your head is kind of spinning and I could not press my mom.

I mean, my mother was about to lose like the man she had been with since she was 16 years old and she wasn't prepared for it.

And so like I just had that was just hands off.

Plus, I had to be completely, 100% present for my dad's death.

Like I wanted to.

It was about him.

It wasn't about me and my whatever.

I wanted to be completely aware.

And and you know, I just wanted to be there for it.

And so when my mom said that, I realized she was right.

Like, this is something we're going to have to deal with later.

But my body.

So my mom kind of laid down and I thought, OK, well, that's that.

I don't want to.

Like, I can't do.

I can't put this on her, like I can't put this on anybody.

And I was in shock.

So I just laid down and I kind of turned away from her on my side and pretended to go to sleep.

And I don't know if you've ever cried but not had the breathy part.

I don't know if you've ever cried and just had tears stream out of your eyes like a faucet was turned on, but none of the none of the like, you know.

None of that.

Just.

Just like silent cries.

Just, I don't just water.

I soaked my pillow, wasn't shaking, 'cause I didn't want her to know.

And she was laying in bed next to me, 'cause I didn't want to upset her.

And I'm facing my father, so I'm on my side with my head on the pillow, facing away from my mom, looking at my dad.

I'm I'm literally like 6 feet away from my dad.

I'm just staring at him and more than anything and now I'm gonna now I'm gonna cry more than anything.

I wanted to climb into the bed with him and say please tell me this is not true.

Please tell me this is not true.

And also please don't die you know so but I was like immobile.

I was immobile and so I just laid there like frozen, like like I almost had a stroke.

I was just couldn't move and and I waited until I thought my mom was asleep.

And then I slid out of the bed really carefully and I crept past my sister who had finally fallen asleep in the recliner.

And I went out to the nurse and I was crying and I said I think I'm gonna start screaming.

I know.

And I kind of was laughing.

I'm like, I I think I'm having nervous breakdown.

Can I you?

Is there a bathroom?

I can go like so my mom and my sister can't hear me.

And the nurse, the nurses knew what was going on and she took me to another floor and she's like, here, you know, Do you do you want to stay with you?

And I said, no, I just need to.

I need to have some time to myself.

So I walk into this bathroom, I turn on the light and and I'm right in front and I'm in front of a mirror.

And now, mind you, I hadn't slept in like, you know, a day or so I look in the mirror and I don't even know who whose face that is.

Like I don't need it doesn't.

Suddenly it's doesn't look familiar to me.

I know that's crazy sounds.

Crazy, that's That is an experience that I definitely had and countless people that I've spoken with have expressed that same thing, that phenomenon of looking in the mirror and not seeing yourself and just feeling so strange you.

Don't.

You're like, who is that?

Who is that person?

It's you're the same person, but you don't like suddenly you look different.

And I I'll tell you now, I never looked anything like my dad, but I looked like my mom and my my sister looks just like my just like my dad and not that much like my mom.

So we just felt that was normal, like one kid always looks like one parent, right.

So I never questioned it.

So I look at, look at myself and I'm, I'm seriously disassociating.

And I and so I'm about to start crying really like audibly loud.

And I still feel like I want to scream.

And I realized that I can't do any of that because if I start, I don't know that I'll stop.

And I can't lose my shit right now because I've got to like, I've got to like take care of my mom and my sister.

Oh, also, did I did I mention that Hurricane Irma is about to hit outside?

Oh wow.

Yeah.

So outside there were like hurricane there were like Gale force winds bending the palm trees.

We're we're on a we're at a hospital that looks out onto a river and the a hurricane was gonna hit the town we were in and we were so we were had one eye on my dad one eye on the news and they kept kind of coming around and giving us updates and we weren't going to leave them there.

So I don't even know why they bothered because like it's not like we were going to go anywhere and and they were evacuating places and I think they had started to evacuate my mom and dad's neighborhood and so and we had dogs so I'm like I can't I can't lose my shit right now.

I've got to like I got to take over like when dad when something happens to dad then I'm in charge.

So I just sucked it all in.

I'm like put it in a box suck it in.

You can't do this right now.

You'll do.

It's not going to go away.

You'll deal with this later.

And I'm staring at myself in the mirror and I'm willing myself to keep it together.

So I shove it all down.

I come out and I see my mom way down at the end of the hallway.

She's like, looking for me.

And I kind of whisper, yelled at her.

I'm like mom over here.

And she turns around and I see that she's like, almost hysterical crying.

And the closer she gets to me, she's muttering something over and over, and I can't understand what she's saying.

And then when she gets to me, I I can hear what she's saying.

And it's we were just children.

We were just children.

And I'm like, Mom, whatever it is, we don't have to talk about it right now.

Let's just focus on Dad.

But she's.

But it's the cat's out of the bag.

She just tells me she's like, he always knew you were going to find out.

And so she tells me the story right there in the hall, even though I tell her we don't have to talk about this right now.

And the story is this, that when my mom and dad met, my dad was in the Navy and he met her and they fell in love and they got married very early.

They got married when my mom was 17 years old and my dad was 20.

They got married in April.

And then by June, my dad was having cold feet.

He was saying, Oh my gosh, what did we do?

We're teenagers, basically.

We don't know what we're doing.

I think we, I think we got married.

I think we're too young for this.

And my mom was like, no, we're not like because you know, you know how women are.

We're always kind of a little bit more mature than the guys.

And he was having cold feet and wanting to back out of it, I think.

And mom was not having it.

And so he, they got married in April.

By June he was called away because he was in the Navy and it was, you know, 1965, he got called away on a three month tour.

So he went and then mom thought that was it, like she didn't think he was coming back.

And so she was in cosmetology school, and she was devastated.

And she just was, you know, upset all the time.

And the guy who owned the cosmetology school was this handsome older man who comforted her, turns out, with his penis.

And.

But that's not what she said.

She said, yeah, she didn't say that.

She didn't say that.

Sorry.

I can laugh about it now, But she said, you know, your dad left.

I didn't think he was coming back.

I was really upset.

I was in school at the time and there was a man who owned the cosmetology school and he told me I was going to be OK and that I was beautiful and like I was going to have a lot more boyfriends and husbands if I wanted them.

And don't you know, who cares about him?

And and then and I'm and I'm kind of like yeah and and she goes.

And the next thing I knew I was waking up in his beach house.

And then the next thing I knew six weeks after that I was pregnant.

And I hadn't heard from your dad And I knew that I did not want this guy to be your father because he already had two ex wives and like 4 kids.

And I didn't not want that for myself or for you.

And so I just never went back to the school and I never told him I was pregnant.

And I just figured I'd raise you on my own.

And that's exactly what I was going to do until your dad came home in September and he shows up on my doorstep and he's like, oh, my God, I missed you so much.

Like, I'm so sorry.

Please.

Like, I want to spend the rest of my life with you.

I was just afraid.

I was scared because we're so young.

But now I know that I can't live without you.

And my mom said, well, you're not, you're not going to want to live with me when I tell you what I need to tell you.

And that is when you left.

I didn't think you were coming back.

I slept with somebody else.

I'm pregnant and I'm going to keep this baby.

So I don't.

I don't blame you if you don't want to spend the rest of your life with me.

And mom said your dad didn't hesitate.

He got down on his knees and he put his arms around my waist and his head on my stomach.

And he said, I want to spend the rest of my life with you.

And you're my wife.

And do you love, do you love this other guy?

And my mom said, no, I love you.

But like you disappeared.

And he said, well, if you love me, then that's my baby and you're my wife.

And I'm gonna spend the rest of my life with both of you.

Wow, that brought tears to my eyes.

Like, honestly, Yeah, that's.

My dad like that.

My dad was like a really righteous stand up guy.

So when my mom told me that story but I couldn't even cry because as she's telling me this story, mind you, I'm and I've never done it since and I've never done it before.

When in the middle of the story I I'm looking, I'm suddenly looking at my mom and I in profile and I'm like, what?

This?

What?

Why I'm over here?

This is weird.

And then all of a sudden I was back and I was looking at my mom straight on.

And then she kept talking.

And then all of a sudden I was back on the side again.

And I'm like, OK, this is not good.

And then I would go back in and I realize now I only, I realized like couple weeks after, oh, you were literally disassociating.

You're having an out of experience.

I never, I just thought it was a figure of speech.

I didn't know people actually did that.

So I'm trying to get out of there, right?

My, my, I my, like subconsciously I want to get out.

I don't want it this, any of this to be happening.

So my body.

So I'm trying to leave my body.

Apparently I didn't know that then, but I know it now.

So finally my mom's telling me the story and she's like, so so he came back and he said, yeah, I, you know, I wanna be with both of you.

That's my baby.

And we're never, you know, gonna talk about it again.

And they really didn't, she said.

So we had you and your mom.

Your dad never even asked about the other guy.

And he didn't, he didn't care.

He didn't, you know?

And when you were born, he was, he was thrilled.

He was a father.

And we never really talked about it.

Dana, that other guy was just like a sperm donor like we.

And so I finally say, mom, like, who is the other guy?

Like, who's my biological father?

And my mom looks at me and she starts crying even harder and she goes, I don't remember his name.

And I go, Mom, a guy put a baby in you and you don't remember his name.

And then she said, well, Dana, it was 51 years ago.

I'm like, OK, we don't need to get personal about my age here.

Like like let's let's stay on topic and.

It was.

51 years ago.

I don't remember his name.

And I'm like, Mom, come on, She goes, well, it didn't sound like it was spelled.

And then she was like, oh, I remember his first name.

It was Michelangelo.

And I'm like Michelangelo, like the painter and the sculptor.

She's like, yeah, And she goes, but I don't.

I'm so sorry, Dana.

I don't remember his last name.

And then she starts crying because she feels guilty that she doesn't remember his last name.

I'm like, Mom, don't worry about it.

We never have to talk about this again.

If you don't want to, let's just focus on Daddy.

Let's just go back downstairs.

Let's not talk about this anymore.

Let's just focus on what's happening right now.

And so that's what we did.

I I told her the next morning.

I think you're wrong.

So there there's there's a thing.

And Joan Didion wrote a book on this called Magical Thinking.

Are you familiar with that book?

I.

Haven't read it, but it has been recommended to me many times.

I need to.

Oh, you should read it.

It's magical.

Thinking is when you throw logic out and you you want something to be true.

So bad that you make it make sense in your head that you create logic that upholds the lie.

And so I transitioned from like I guess it was like two or three in the morning when my mom told me I laid in bed.

My mom like went to went to sleep.

She was like physically, mentally exhausted.

I didn't sleep a wink.

I literally just laid in bed the rest of night, stared at my dad and was just head spinning and wanting, knowing that he was lost to me already because they were giving him morphine, Wanting more than anything just to start crying hysterically and like just like beg him to wake up and talk to me about this.

Because nobody else, and I've said this many times after, nobody could take away the pain that I was feeling except for my dad.

Because what I needed to hear, I needed to process this with him.

I needed, I needed to tell him I'm devastated, that I am not your biological child.

I'm devastated and I wanted him.

I wanted to hear that he was devastated too.

And then I wanted us to say to each other, what we have is bigger than biology.

And I know that that's what he felt, 'cause my mom told me as much, and he showed me as much with his life and how he raised me.

But in that moment when you feel your entire being falling apart, you just want like it.

Like, for me, this was between me and my dad.

It didn't even have anything to do with my mom, like she couldn't make me feel better.

The only person that could make me feel better was in a hospital bed being pumped full of morphine ready to die, and he was the only person that could take away this horrible screaming like pain.

Also, I was having to keep it in because I didn't want to upset my mom and I didn't want to upset my sister because, you know, we were losing our dad and I and I didn't want her to feel what I was feeling, which was just utter, like devastation.

So I had to keep a shove down and just allow him know that he was going to pass and just allow him to to do it.

And but I told my mom the next morning and, you know, and and they told us, they said, look, here's what's going to happen.

He could last a couple days.

He could last a couple hours.

You'll know because he'll he'll, his breathing will become very labored and it will seem like it's very hard for him to breathe.

But then he'll, he'll start to take less and less breaths and then he'll take last.

His last few breaths will be very deep, and then he'll let go.

So the nurses and the doctors, they prepped us for it.

I kind of had his dog come in and I put his dog in bed with him and I played his favorite music.

You know, we just had that.

I took all the, I took all the machines out of the room that were beeping and making noises and lighting up that weren't keeping him comfortable and just got rid of those and, you know, burned candles and just tried to make it nice.

So the next day, my mom has not been back to her house for two days or taking a shower, done anything.

And I I had concocted this weird, this weird thing and that was mom.

Did you and dad have sex before he left to go on the ship?

And she said, well, yes.

And I said so how do you know that I'm not his?

Now mind you, by this time I'd thrown out all the blood type stuff in my head, right?

Because I'm desperate to make this make.

I'm desperate to make this go my way.

So she goes, well, I I don't know, she goes, well, I I got my period after your dad left and and I said, well mom, that wasn't your period.

That was implantation bleeding, which is a bleeding that you can get when you're pregnant.

A lot of women have that and they think it's a period, but it's not.

It's you know it's the egg implanting.

So she was said yeah I guess it could have been.

I don't know.

And I said Mom, there's no way that that man is not my biological father.

I think this was a mistake.

I think that it's him and I want AI want a paternity test.

So when you come back from on on your way back from the house, can you stop it the drug store and get a paternity test?

Because I'm gonna prove like this there's no way.

There's no way it's somebody else.

Now, mind you, I hadn't seen a picture of this other guy hadn't.

I didn't know anything.

I just knew that my dad was my dad and I was going to prove it to them.

And before my dad left this planet, I was going to prove that he was my biological father.

So my mom goes off to home to take a shower and stuff, and my sister and I are there.

And we're with my dad.

And we're constantly talking to him because the nurses said even though he's unconscious and he's on morphine, the last thing to go is the hearing.

So we were just telling stories and just about all the good times we had and telling him what an awesome daddy was and that we were going to take care of mom.

And it was OK for him to let go.

We were here with him.

And so he starts like, around noon.

He starts doing the labored breathing.

And mom's still not back.

So I call her up.

I'm like, hey.

And she thinks something's wrong.

What's happening?

Oh, nothing.

We just, we know we're getting hungry.

We wondered if, you know, we're going to wait for you to go to lunch.

Meanwhile, my sister's holding my dad, and she's, like, looking at me like what?

She's not.

She's not on her way.

And I kind of shake my head.

And then she's like, oh, no, I'm at the bridge and they've got it closed off.

There's been an accident or something.

And I don't think I can get across.

And so now I'm like, oh, OK, well, you know, I guess we'll see you when we see you.

I got to go.

Bye.

And my dad's doing the death rattle.

Breathe with that.

They do.

And so I told Ginger I'm like, she can't get across some bridge.

We got to do this.

And so I'm on one side holding my dad's hand, my sister's on the other side holding his hand.

And we're just, he's taking those last breaths.

And we're.

And we're just silently looking at each other and looking at him and and telling him.

And then we start to tell him it's OK And because he's having some, I can tell he doesn't want to let go.

And he kind of froze his brow.

And so I lean down into his ear and I say you were the best daddy I could have ever had.

We love you so much and we're going to take care of mom and it's OK And then he took this one last breath and he just and he was still and he didn't take another one.

And I looked at my sister and I said daddy's gone and my sister said something very unlike her and so weird because she's not, she's not a scientific person at all.

She's very spiritual.

And she says yes, he's gone.

But his day, his DNA will always live on in US.

Like that's those were first words out of her mouth and she didn't know.

She had no idea.

And so then we were just kind of with it.

And the nurse came in.

The nurse was so sweet.

She came in and she called Dad's death.

And because they have to like I guess, put the time down or something and she actually cried with us.

And then I said, listen, you need to tell me.

You need to tell me before my mom comes in because I I want to go out and talk to her before she comes in.

I don't want her to just come in and find her husband dead.

So she said, OK, so she went out.

It wasn't 5 minutes before she turns around, she comes back in, your mom's down the hall.

I'm like, Oh my God.

So I go out and my mom has two shopping bags and she sees me.

She's, you know, she's got that mom.

Radar.

She immediately knows something's wrong.

She drops the bags and she goes running.

And she just, it's almost like she knew she saw maybe the look on my face and just knew.

And she ran into the room and and then my sister kind of came out and closed the door behind her.

And I could hear my mom talking to my dad.

And one of the first things she said to him was this was not our deal.

Like we were going to grow old together.

This was not, this was not the plan.

And so we just kind of let her have that time with him to like, process the fact that she was not going to, you know, he was 73 and you know, she was not going to have this man to grow old with anymore.

So that was really hard.

And then she came out finally, and she hugged me and she whispered and she said the paternity kit is in the CVS bag and I'm going to have Ginger take me downstairs and you can do the test.

So she, my sister and my my mom said she wanted to go down to get something to eat.

And I went into the room and I pulled ADNA test out and I was talking to my dad, who was already gone, and explaining to him that I was going to, like, prove to everybody.

And wasn't it going to be funny when the results came back?

And all these years, you guys thought that I was this random hair stylist's daughter.

But in reality, ha ha, joke's on you.

I'm your kid.

You can't deny it.

And so I'm swabbing my dead, my dead dad's pal.

And it did feel like a weird violation, but it but I was also like, I'm doing this because I want to prove that like, this is all a big misunderstanding.

And at the time, it's so crazy because logic just completely.

I mean, I'm a logical person.

I just threw it out the window.

I was like, I was on a mission to prove, you know?

Well, we all, I think we all do.

These like wild mental gymnastics.

The magical thing for me, I thought there must have been a partial mistake in my DNA results, 'cause I matched with some family that I knew and not all.

And so I was like, oh, it's partial.

Somehow it got partially messed up like.

That's not.

Possible.

Thank you so much for taking us into that.

You described it so clearly.

Like I just, I felt like I was there with you, and I can't imagine how painful that experience was.

The aftermath of the DNA test

But also, you were so kind and empathetic and you know, I feel like that was such a beautiful message to give your dad.

Before he.

Passed.

Well, it was the truth, yeah.

Was it because it was the truth?

Yeah, so you you swab and and you get DNA from him.

What happens next?

Well, we had to evacuate.

We had to wait for the undertaker to come get my dad's body.

Then they were like, well, we don't know if we're going to do it because, you know, they're evacuating part of the city.

But they they said we have a guy on the way, so we had to wait for him.

And so we waited and a couple hours he came and I told mom, I said, you know, let's let's leave because, you know, we don't want to see them put him in a bag or anything for the the God that would just kill us.

So we saw, we met, met the guy, we signed some papers and then we left.

And it was strangely very hard to leave.

It was very hard to leave.

And then we, you know, I don't, I'm sure other people have had that.

When you you're kind of kind of unaware and you're like, well, if I leave, then it's real.

And when we were in the elevators, I remember like the doors closing and it's all the three of us looking at each other and just crying and being like when those doors close, it's going to be super final.

And then we just kind of like got in the car and went home and we we just silently started to pack quickly but silently.

And we packed up everything at my dad's F-150.

And then we got in and we started to drive to my sister's house in Ohio.

We started to evacuate with the rest of the city.

So we were in bumper to bumper traffic.

I'm just we're all kind of shell shocked and we've cried so hard.

Like you know how when you cry really hard then you're just like spent, you're just weak.

And I was driving.

My mom is just like she just can't even deal.

She's just staring straight ahead and my my sister's in the back with the dogs and she's just like, you know crying and and we're we're just stuck in traffic.

We're just sitting there, and I'm and I'm thinking, who am I?

Who is this person?

Do I have a family, another family out there?

Is my father still alive?

Like, I had all these questions.

How did this happen?

Is this really happening?

And so we we're on the road for, like something crazy.

Like we stopped at halfway in North Carolina, at my mom's friend's house.

But to get there, it usually only takes five hours.

It took us something like 12 hours to get there.

We finally get there and we just go to sleep.

My sister and I share a room.

My mom's in another room, and when I'm in bed with my sister, I almost tell her.

But then we start talking about my dad and we start crying and I'm like, I don't, I can't tell her right now.

This would just tip.

This just pushed her over the edge.

So I didn't tell her.

I didn't tell her for a while, actually.

So then we get up the next day and we push on to Ohio because that's where my dad's family is and that's where my sister lives.

And we're going to stay there for, you know, until it's safe to go back.

Whatever.

And so we drive the rest of the way, and I go to stay with my best friend from high school, and my sister goes to her house.

And I finally told my sister a couple days later because I was having like almost a nervous breakdown.

And she said to me, she was trying to comfort me because she's never seen me cry this hard because I'm the older sister and I I'm kind of the tough one.

And she was concerned.

And she kept saying, Dana, you're starting to worry me it's going to be OK.

It's going to be OK And I said, no, it's not, it's not ever going to be OK.

And and then finally I just blurted out and I said, dad's not my biological father.

And she goes, what?

And then I start crying really hard.

And then at that moment, my mom walks into the hotel room and my sister's just like, stunned.

And she says say what you just said.

And I said, dad's not my biological father.

I said she knows.

She knows.

And my sister goes.

She looks at my mom she goes, what what the blank is what is what is happening And and my mom just burst into tears and then my sister is so confused and I can't talk now because I it's I just, I'm crying uncontrollably and my mom's nodding and my sister's like, wait a minute.

Is he my biological father?

And that just sets me off.

And then I I finally managed to stop crying long enough to say you look just like him.

How could you say that?

You look exactly like him.

And so then she just, you know, she tries to comfort me more and she's just like, how did this happen?

What is going on?

Nobody can give her any information, 'cause we're both crying so hard we can't speak.

So that was a whole thing.

We finally get the story out and she's just stunned.

And then her, her family come.

And she said, well, I'm not going to tell anybody.

This is your story to tell.

I start crying really hard and I just tell everybody and they they think it's because, you know, dad died.

So I just say, I got to go back to the room.

So I go back to the room.

I cry myself to sleep.

I'm like, I pass out.

I wake up the next morning and my sister's not there.

And I asked my mom, where's Ginger?

And she goes, well, she went, stayed at her house with her family.

I call my sister and I'm like, how could you leave me like, where are you and can you come back?

I really need you to be here.

And she goes.

She was.

Listen, I'm not gonna lie to you.

I freaked out.

I've done something I've never done, she goes.

I woke up this morning, I went downstairs, and I just shotgunned a beer.

I'm like what?

Wow.

It affected her really profoundly too.

We and we kind of laughed because that's like something my dad would have done.

She was, I just shotgunned a beer.

She was Dana, this is fucking crazy.

And I said I know she was, so I can't drive.

I said, OK, well, I'll have Mom come get you.

So mom goes and gets her and we just spend the day together, just like.

'Cause now I can feel like I can talk about it, but I'm like, we don't.

Let's not talk about it for mom, 'cause it's going to upset her.

So but we had time to process it.

And then, so, Long story short, 2 weeks later, I'm flying home back to Los Angeles.

I'm on the plane, I'm writing my dad's obituary and I paid for Internet on the plane, 'cause I had to check some dates and stuff, 'cause I'm writing all about his life.

My dad was the police Lieutenant in our small town and like, beloved by a lot of people.

And so I'm writing this obituary and I get an e-mail.

You know how it kind of slides in front of your on on your screen?

I see it's from the lab.

And I'm like, yes.

Oh my God, I'm going to get validated.

So I click open.

Now, mind you, I'm on an airplane.

And the irony is when I sit down, I notice the woman next to me is drinking.

Oh, she's already has a glass of wine and she's probably already 2 glasses in and she's been crying.

I don't say anything to her.

And then finally I kind of look at her and I say, are you OK?

And she says, well, my friend just passed away from breast cancer and I'm, I'm going to her funeral and I'm like, Oh my God, I'm so sorry.

And we talked about a friend a little bit and then I go back to to writing and then so anyway, the the thing comes in from the lab.

I'm very excited.

I click, I open it, you know, and you know, those like DNA results, all these numbers, whatever.

And you know, and I'm looking at it.

Yeah, it's.

It's working.

It's all this like gibberish whatever.

And I, my eyes scan and I go down to the bottom and it says percentage of possibility of paternity 0%.

And it was like being stabbed in the heart again, all over again because in that two weeks, I again, don't ask me how I had convinced myself that this test was going to prove, like I was going to, like, prove everybody wrong.

And and now it was really final.

There was no, like, that was it.

And so it's like it kind of kept happening.

I kept having to relive it.

And so I burst into tears and closed my laptop and just was crying uncontrollably.

And the woman next to me, she goes, Oh my God, what is wrong?

What happened?

Are you OK?

And I said, I just found out through paternity test that my dad's not my biological father.

And she went just now.

And I said, yeah, that that test, you know, here, I'll show you.

And I opened it up and I showed her and she just looked at me dumbfounded and she reached up and pressed the the call button for the flight attendant and he came over and she goes, we're going to need the big bottle, the whole bottle of wine.

You just bring a whole bottle of wine to us.

My friend just died of breast cancer and she just found out her dad is not her biological father.

And he just looked at us and the woman said she found out like just now, like literally 3 minutes ago go get the wine.

And so this guy just looks at us like and we're both sobbing and he just he just comes back and hands us a full bottle.

Sadly it was, you know, it was not the best wine, but we didn't care and we we killed that whole bottle of wine.

And I'm not a drinker, so I pretty much passed out by the time I get to Lai was just like, I could barely get off the plane.

And I'm.

I'm still friends with that woman today.

Like, we keep in touch on Facebook.

Oh.

That's amazing, Yeah.

Yeah, 'cause we helped each other through this really awful, like a really awful plane ride.

Live to live, to tell it.

So, then I so then I I finally start to think about Googling, right?

But I can't bring myself to do it.

So I wait until I'm back in Ohio for my dad's celebration of life, and I'm at my best friend's house and I say, listen, I need to tell you something.

Can can we go out and get a drink?

Because, like, she's she's got five kids and like, you know, big house and a lot going on.

So she's like, yeah, absolutely.

Let's go out and get a glass of wine.

So we go out and I tell her this whole story that I just told you.

And at the end of the story, she looks at me and she goes, yeah, Ginger called me and told me the whole story.

And I went, what, what?

And, you know, she's also known my, we all grew up together.

And she's like, Ginger feels like she failed you because she felt like she didn't support you in the way you need to be supported.

So she called me and she, like, tipped me off so I could, like, decide what I was going to say and how I was going to support you.

And I was like, she told no, She totally supported me.

So I immediately, of course, called her.

And I was like, why are you so crazy?

Like you were fine.

So then I went.

We went back to Kim's house.

That's my best friend.

With her next to me.

I'm like, let's let's start doing let's let's start doing some Googling.

Let's start doing some sleuthing.

So I googled Michelangelo Cosmetology School, Jacksonville, FL and an an obituary came up.

And right away, I mean, I guess that's a bit of an unusual name for Florida.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I.

Didn't know his last name.

Yeah, my mom didn't.

She couldn't spell it.

So it turns out I'm not going to say it here, but so it came up right away.

And there's a little black and white photo of him.

And it turns out he sold his cosmetology school.

And here's here's a chilling thing.

So he sells his cosmetology school because he used to be.

He was like an amateur photographer.

He sells it in his 40s.

He retires and he becomes a photographer.

And guess what?

I went to undergraduate.

Guess what I have abfa in.

Photography And I just, I'm staring at that and I show Kim, I'm like, are you seeing this?

And she's reading the obituary about how he's a photographer and a painter and an inventor and a teacher and she's like, it's like they're listing all the things you are.

He he was everything but a writer.

So I'm looking at this little picture and I'm still not sure.

I'm like, I don't know is that him?

I mean it has to be, right.

Who else is who else has that name?

But it doesn't.

I can't tell if it looks like me.

So we get on.

And he had died in 2002.

So I felt a weird twinge, like, oh, I'm never going to meet this guy.

That's weird.

I'm never going to meet my biological father.

And Kim was like, are are you OK?

I'm like, I strangely knew that he was dead.

I kind of.

I felt it when my mom told me I didn't have, like, an expectation to meet him in a weird way.

So then I get on Facebook because the last name is Italian.

And it's very it's it's, I've never seen it before.

It's unusual.

So we get on Facebook and we start Googling.

And of course there are four names that are listed as his children.

So I start Googling those names.

The first guy doesn't look anything like me.

I'm like, there's, I don't know, he, I guess maybe he could be it.

So I'm on Facebook and I'm looking at his daughters and he has one daughter that kind of looks like me.

I'm like, maybe and Kim's like, I don't know, it's hard to tell.

So then I'm on her Facebook page and I'm scrolling through all her photos and I stopped dead in my tracks.

It looks like she's got a toddler picture of me.

She looks like she has a baby picture of me on her Facebook page.

And I'm like, what?

And I show it to Kim and she's like, Oh my God, that looks like you when you were a baby.

I'm like, I know it was this woman's oldest daughter.

And I said, wow.

And so then I started looking and I said, I think these are, I think this is it.

I think, I think these are my people.

I just don't look like my brother, 'cause we're half.

But wow, his his granddaughter looks just like me.

So then I Googled some more.

I Facebooked some more people, and then I found a brother who looked just like me.

Like when we were in high school, we could have been fraternal twins.

And that was freaky, 'cause if you've never I don't have a brother, and if you've never seen a man that looks like you, to suddenly see a man that looks like you, it's weird.

So I got I finally started reaching out to these people and saying hey, I know this might sound weird but my father just passed away and a secret came out and it turns out that I, you know, I think we might share.

I think we might have the same father, but I'm not sure.

So it got to the the oldest brother and he emailed me back fairly quickly and said you know what, we've had other half siblings pop up.

It turns out our father was a prolific ladies man so over the over the course of a year.

So first there were four, then there were five.

Then there were seven.

Then there were eight.

Then there were nine.

So it turns out Michelangelo put 10 babies in nine different ladies.

OK, from.

And yeah.

Prolific is probably the best word, then.

For it, yeah.

Like he he was Nick Cannon before Nick Cannon was Nick Cannon, right?

And yeah, so his his part time job was like like making making good looking babies, 'cause I have I have 1/2 sister who was a supermodel in the 80s.

And it was really weird because I recognize some of the Vogue covers and the Cosmo covers that she was on.

Like I'm like Oh my God, I remember these covers like I can't believe that woman is my half sister.

And then I have another sister who is a famous wrestler.

And then I have this brother who we could have been twins in high school and he and and it turns out we're all in the arts.

We're either in entertainment or when we're all in arts.

And then I have 1/2 brother and that's a whole other story.

This brother I had a brother who was adopted at birth, raised in New York, moved out to LA probably like 10 or 15 years before I did.

Lived within a couple blocks from me and was a cameraman in Hollywood when I was a screenwriter and dated one of my friends.

Oh my gosh.

So it's just like so close to home for you and so many connections and.

Like, what are the odds?

What are the odds that?

So we were both born in Jacksonville.

Oh, and get this, we were in utero at the same time.

So he was born in July of 1965.

I was born in March of 1966.

So Michelangelo had two ladies pregnant at the same time and then Jeff was adopted at birth, raised in New York, moved out to LA and then I was like we moved up to Ohio at when I was six months.

I came out to Lai think he came in the late.

He came in like in the late 80s.

And I came in I I moved to LA in 1995.

And then we lived like, within a couple blocks from each other.

I mean, thank God we didn't date.

Yes, in the same industry.

He dated one of my friends.

He dated my friend Kathy, which I didn't find out because I wasn't.

I didn't, I wasn't really great friends with Kathy.

But when Jeff and I met and I and we were going through photos of when he lived in Marina Del Rey, I lived in Venice.

We were going through old photos of him and I saw these pictures of him with Kathy.

I'm like, Oh my God, you dated Kathy.

I was friends with Kathy.

And he's like, what?

He said, yeah, I didn't date her.

I dated her for like a couple months.

And then it turns out he started dating her probably about a year after, 'cause I moved, and Kathy and I no longer.

Like, if you're in LA, you kind of tend to only hang out with people that are in your neighborhood because you Otherwise, it's a 45 minute drive.

So I moved out of the neighborhood, and I didn't really hang out with Kathy that much anymore.

We were friendly, but I just missed like me, 'cause I I met all her boyfriends.

So I would have met him.

I stayed in that neighborhood.

Isn't it crazy?

And then he turned out to be the one that went off the rails.

Stalked me Like, stalked me.

Stalked his ex-girlfriend, ended up.

I ended up driving him to rehab.

I I knew him for like 5 months and at the end of five months I was driving him to rehab.

He had completely gone off the rails.

He, he had a host of problems, and he ended up getting arrested a couple of times and he threatened the life of a sitting official, of an elected official.

So the FBI got involved.

And he, yeah, he'd he'd had, he had an untimely end.

He committed suicide in the LA County Jail.

And that was a whole other trauma.

That was a whole other trauma that, like, I won't even go into here.

But yeah, it was weird to meet him and then within a year lose him to mental illness and.

Alcohol.

So how soon exactly after you identified who your biological father was and found the siblings, did you reach out to them?

Reaching out to the siblings

Was it like days or?

No, it was weeks.

It was weeks.

I had to like I had to process everything.

And even then, I think it was too early.

Like I, I and like I said, I was devastated by the loss of my dad.

And I think this was a way for me to bury myself and not have to deal with the fact that now I had this void in my life.

And so I kind of busied myself with reaching out to these people and getting to know them.

And I was lucky.

They all embraced me with open arms.

And a lot of them didn't know each other.

Because remember, we we were all different.

We had different mothers.

Yeah, and you're kind of just uncovering it all as you went.

Have you met your siblings?

What's your relationship like with them now?

So I.

Have three brothers and six sisters and I've met all of them except one.

The the the model passed away before I found out.

She passed away, I think in 2012, so I didn't meet her.

I have another sister that I've spoken with on the phone, but I I've two other sisters I've spoken with on the phone, but we've never met.

And then I I met my sister who is the wrestler and she lives here in the state of Florida.

And I met my oldest brother, Mark.

He lives in Georgia.

And then I met my second oldest brother, Terry.

He lives in Atlanta, GA.

I met Jeff, who lived in LA, and then I met my oldest sister, who has since passed away.

I'm really happy.

I got to meet her before she passed away, and when she met me, she walked in, 'cause I was visiting.

Mark and Mark and Peggy were kind of raised together, 'cause they were like the original four that that he had married the mothers.

And so they they were the so the first four children, he he was in their lives.

So when Peggy, who's the oldest, she walked into Mark's house and I was in the kitchen and she gasped and she goes, Oh my God, you look so much like Daddy.

Because out of all the kids, I kind of have his face.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, it's really weird.

All the kids either have green eyes or blue eyes.

I'm the only one that has brown eyes.

He had green eyes.

But I have his.

Like I just have his.

I have his face.

I've got his eyebrows and the shape of his face and his nose.

He was a real joker, charismatic, A showman.

There's a picture of him performing in drag and he looks a lot like me.

It's really weird.

And and I will say this, seeing a picture of my biologic father in drag, I had to laugh because it suddenly made my life make a lot of sense.

Most of my not that my biological father was gay because that he wasn't gay.

Obviously he has ten children.

He was a hair stylist.

He was a swinger.

He was a man who was really ahead of his time.

He was an artist and he had a sailboat with an all female crew and like a huge, like a big boat sailed around the islands.

And he was just this fantastical kind of larger than life person.

And so when I I remember seeing that picture, some of my friends said, well, of course, of course your biological father did drag like and and and was Italian like.

There's no way, like, doesn't that make more sense?

Like you were raised by a German policeman, 'cause that's my my dad was a policeman and my dad was from Germany, born in Germany.

But you were sired by an Italian hairdresser.

Like of course you were.

It makes every everyone's like this.

Like of course, like now everything makes sense.

And I have to admit it kind of does make sense.

So I can laugh about it now.

But like I say when I talk about my dad and when I cry, it's just because I miss my dad.

I miss him.

We used to butt heads all the time, but in a loving way.

We always gave each other shit and we we just we had fun together and we love to yell at each other.

We love to get in arguments and I just miss him, you know?

How is your relationship with your mom now?

My.

Mom and I have always had a great relationship.

She had, she had me when she was very young.

She was 18 when I was born.

My mom is an old soul and she's and 'cause we're we're not friends, she's definitely my mom.

But I feel I've always been very close to her and we've got like a shorthand and never once.

And it's so funny that she kept saying when she first told me in the hospital hallway, don't hate us, don't hate us.

And I I think the first words out of my mouth were, how could you ever think that I would hate you for this or anything?

Like, I, you guys are the two people I love the most in the world.

So my mom is the person I love most in the world.

And that never changed, even for a millisecond.

Like when when COVID happened, I got in my car and I drove from LA to Jacksonville because I didn't 'cause, you know, everyone had to shelter in place.

And I'm like, well, I'm going to shelter with the person I love the most.

So yeah, here I am.

So yeah, it didn't, it didn't change our relationship in any way.

And my mom was, was as soon as I found out.

And she said she was, look, don't make me the hero because I was going to take it to my grave.

But because you found out, I'm going to tell you the truth and I'm going to tell you everything.

And this is your story to tell and you tell whoever you want.

And this is all you now.

But my mom's cool like that, and she said there were a few times I wanted to tell you, but your father didn't want to share you with the other family.

That was like his big fear.

And he also was afraid because you were so different from us.

He was afraid that when we told you you would go look for the other family.

And then his biggest fear was that you would leave us and go be with the other family.

Because I was very different than my family.

I was an artist and really, like a free spirit.

And I grew up in this tiny town in Ohio, and I thought I should be living in New York City somewhere.

Like, I never made sense to me.

And I was always like, how did I get here?

Why am I with these boring people?

Like, my parents never took community museums.

Like, art was not part of the vocabulary.

And I was all about it.

Like, that's all I wanted to do was like make art.

And I mean, I was listening to like Coltrane at like 12 years old and being really into it.

And my parents were like, this is noise.

Why are you.

I'm like, that's, that's John Coltrane, that's Miles Davis.

What are you talking about?

And I kind of always knew that I I just thought I was the black sheep, but I didn't fit in.

But you know, it turns out I had different biology.

And the more I started finding out about my biological father, I think some of that stuff is definitely nature.

Like, it's hard wired into you because Jeff was a cameraman.

Terry's in film as well and makes music and writes.

The model was also a published songwriter and was in bands.

The youngest is a songwriter, the wrestler.

That's entertainment.

Like we're all we all are very similar and we have a lot of weird things in common, like the second oldest girl, and Mark, who's the oldest boy.

They both have rescue farms.

They rescue animals they like.

They both, they each have two donkeys that they rescued.

What are the odds of that?

These are two people we've never met your.

Family is such a good example of this because there are so many of you and to be able to see all of these similarities across so many children is amazing.

Oh, it's it's creepy.

It's creepy.

Terry and Jeff who, who who never got to meet by the way, but they talked on the phone.

They both had built sound studios in their houses.

They're both.

And our father was really into ham radio when it came out and he used to build radios.

And both Terry and Jeff, not ever knowing that, built recording studios in their houses.

Who does that?

So that's so, so interesting.

Yeah, isn't it crazy?

Yeah, I'm curious and, and maybe I'm asking this a little bit out of a personal place, how you have processed the fact that both of your parents knew because most of the people that I talked to in our community, maybe there was a question or the mom knew and she was keeping it from the dad both of your parents knew.

How they processed the fact that both of their parents knew

How did that feel it?

Never crossed my mind because my parents were together from the time they were teenagers and I knew that there they didn't have any secrets from each other.

I I knew they were super tight.

And I also I knew I know my dad.

And like when my mom told me that story and when everything that she said, I'm like, Yep, Yep Yep.

I almost was not angry, but I was like, how could you guys ever think I would hate you or be mad at you?

Because that's why they, that's kind of why they didn't tell me.

And I thought that was kind of sad and weird because I would have thought that they would have known me better.

But I think they did it out of fear.

But it made sense.

It made sense to me.

And then the thing I wanted to know when I kind of spent that next year kind of unpacking was kind of going up to each of the people in my life that my dad was the closest to and trying to find out if he told anybody.

Because I wanted to see.

I wanted to know what he if he told anybody.

And I don't know why.

I wanted to know that.

I don't know why.

I just I just did.

He didn't learn, no.

He didn't tell, Yeah, he didn't tell anybody and he didn't tell people that I would have thought he would have told, like his brother.

And I asked mom, I'm like, do you think you do you think dad told anybody?

She goes, you know, your your dad and I, we were each other's best friend like we were it like nobody else needed to know except for the two of us.

She goes, Why would he have needed to tell anybody?

And you also have to look at my parents, but neither one of them really had parents.

My mom had parents but she was taken away from her parents young and put into foster care and like at the age of like four or something.

And then my dad was born during the war in Germany and his parent, his he never knew his dad.

His dad died before he was born and his mom died when he was three.

So these are two people who didn't have parents and fell in love and wanted to make a family, right?

And so they did.

And I think they both came from such chaos that it was really important to them to provide a stable, boring, drama, free household, which they did.

And so that's why I was so surprised.

I'm like, nothing exciting ever happens in my family.

How do you like?

And all of a sudden it's like I'm like, you know, I'm a screenwriter.

I had to leave Ohio and go find stories and have go have experiences and have exciting crazy shit happen to me.

So I could write about it and the whole time like it was something crazy, was right under my nose and I didn't know it.

So moving into kind of the the next chapter, what helped you heal and process this experience?

Healing and Processing the Experience

Well, as soon as kind of like everybody knew that, I wanted to know that I was close with.

Then I just started telling everybody who would listen.

Because the more I talked about it, the more it seemed true and I needed it.

I needed because it still felt like a movie.

It's I was still disassociating.

And I it's still, I was still not feeling like this was my life.

And I I still sometimes feel like that.

But so I just started telling everybody, like, I I would tell Uber drivers, I would tell everybody, 'cause it, it grounded it.

It made it like seem, yes, this is something that happened to you.

This is not a movie.

You are not living in an alternate reality.

This is not a different dimension.

Dana Schmalberg, this is your life.

So I just kind of started talking about it and then so that helped.

But what really helped was I found an online support group of a private Facebook group called DNA and PE Friends.

And I got on there and I started reading everybody else's stories and it's like you said, everybody has.

We use the same words, untethered, unmoored.

We felt like our heads were going to explode.

We felt that there was like our whole lives were a lot like everything.

Like we were just associated.

All of a sudden I had this new family right?

And so that helped.

And then I kept trying to find a therapist who understood this and nobody did.

But I did happen to find a good therapist.

I did a lot of somatic experiencing 'cause I had was holding a lot of grief in in my body.

I did a lot of like shadow work and she just created this safe space for me and kind of met me where I was.

And it was like 3 years of of pretty much at first.

Like sometimes I would go twice a week because I had a full on identity crisis.

And yeah, she had to help put me back together.

And then as I was going through that and then when COVID hit and I saw how it seemed like everybody was falling apart, I thought to myself, I don't want anybody to go through what I just went through these five years.

I just went through hell.

My entire being just kind of shattered in a million pieces.

And I had to pick it all up and put it back together.

And even even though I was on the support chat groups that there was no, there didn't seem like to be any resources.

In fact, your podcast didn't even exist yet.

And I was like, yeah, I was like, there's there's nothing out there.

I was just I needed help and I didn't want to feel alone.

I wanted.

So I and I was doing, you know, I was Googling all the time and there just was very little out there.

This was 2017.

And then like five years later, there was still not a lot out there.

So over COVID, I started teaching film at Jacksonville University.

And while I was there, I was on college campus.

And I remember thinking, God, I really miss learning.

I miss going to school.

And here's here's another irony.

When I moved to LA back in 1995, I gave myself five years to sell a screenplay.

And I said if I don't sell a screenplay, I'm going to go back to school and I'm going to get another degree.

I'm going to go for psychology because that's my the other thing that I wanted to do with my life was I wanted to become a psychotherapist.

And so five years came and went.

I had not sold a screenplay, and I was actually fine with it because I'm like, OK, I'm gonna do my Plan B, which was like, I'm gonna go to school, 'cause I'm fascinated by psychology and always have been.

And I kind of always thought that's what I would do if the art and entertainment thing didn't work out.

I'm like, that's fine, you know, I'll, I'll go do this, 'cause I was constantly, like, for fun.

I was reading psychology books, right?

So I started applying to graduate schools in the fall of 2001.

And I had a friend who left Sony where he was working, and he went out on his own as a producer.

And he said, hey, I really like that idea that you had.

I'd like to, I'd like to take it out as a pitch.

I said, you know what, I'm not going to do this anymore.

I'm going to go back to school and I'm going to, I'm going to study psychology.

And so I was waiting in the spring to get my acceptance letters back and he came to me again.

He's like, come on.

He's like, look, if I set the pitch meetings up in the studios, will you come and just pitch?

You don't have to write it.

Just just pitch it.

I'm like, oh, fine, OK, So we went out and we pitched it.

I sold it in the room with the second studio.

That put a pause on that, put a pause on going back to school.

So, so that happens.

And then I got like, I actually got into a couple schools.

I I applied to five.

I got into two and I was still wasn't sure.

I was like I don't know should I do this.

I always hold 1 screenplay and then I immediately got an offer.

I I got like a two year deal at Disney like a two year first look deal at Disney.

And then I was like OK this is real.

I'm going to do the screen writing thing.

And so then I ended up doing that for 2022 years.

And so then when COVID hit and we were all kind of at home and I was seeing how people were falling apart and they couldn't get mental health care.

And I had just been through this like five year odyssey of like finding myself and going through all this therapy and doing a lot, doing a lot of work on my own.

I said I think I'm going to, I'm going to go back.

I'm going to go back and be the person that I needed in 2017.

She didn't exist then.

I'm going to become her.

Yeah, that's amazing.

So you went back to school?

Yeah, so I went to school and now I'm in my second year of my master's program.

I'm currently doing my my practicum.

I'm seeing patients.

I see about 10 patients a week.

I graduate and another two semesters, and then I will do a two year internship.

And at that time, you know, I'll see patients full time, but I'll be under a supervisor, which means they'll OK all my treatment plans and all.

They'll confirm all my diagnosis.

And I'm going to specialize in and PES and just I I don't want people to.

They should have more resources.

Their Their lives shouldn't have to fall apart when this happens.

Yes, I'm so glad that you are pursuing this and that they're going to be more resources and I'm so glad.

That you're.

I'm so glad you're doing this, the retreats that you're doing because Oh my gosh, that existed.

I always signed up for that so fast.

I was flailing.

I was feeling I was looking for anything to hang on to and I would spend hours on like a Facebook page just re pouring over everybody else's stories and like and and offering support and you know, and like emailing back and forth with other MP ES and like.

I don't, I don't even think there was one.

I don't even think there was a podcast out when it first started for me 'cause I think I looked and there wasn't one I.

Don't think so.

I think everything's relative started after and Danny Shapiro's might have started after as well.

Yeah, it's started after 2017.

Yeah, there was nothing really in 2017 except for this Facebook page, and at the time there were only like barely 700 people on it.

Now there's like 9500.

But so yeah, there there was just like I like I said, I was flailing and had you, had you, had I seen a retreat, I'd have been like, I will, I will walk there if I have to, because I just, I needed somebody.

I needed to be with my people.

I needed to be because nobody understands you.

Like even the friends who love you, they don't.

They don't get it you've.

The DNA Surprise Course

Also created a course which for anyone listening Dana has shared it with me.

I've gone through it and looked and and there's just these great modules on things like identity, betrayal, trauma, just all of the things that are so unique, I think to this DNA discovery, DNA surprise world, can you share a little bit about your course and how people can find it?

Yeah, I I just launched it and it is called navigating your DNA Bombshell from shell shock to secure new identity because that's kind of what I felt like I was doing.

And I think that's what a lot of us feel.

We feel like we get a bomb dropped on us.

So what I did was I, you know, I'm taking all these classes, I'm learning how to read studies and research papers and it was really important to me to research all the different ways that we can heal from this trauma and also because the a big component of it is an identity crisis, I think.

And so I spent a a year just reading everything I could on grief and betrayal and identity crisis and shadow work, and integrating a new identity.

Then I wrote it and the the writing part comes easy for me because that's what I've been doing for 22 years.

So I wrote it and then I had to film it, and I did it all myself and it took me longer than it should have.

But thankfully, I do have a background in film and television, so I was able to put this course together.

And what I wanted to do was I wanted to put together something that I would have wanted and needed back when the bombshell got dropped on me.

And it's of course that you kind of take at your own pace, has videos where I'm kind of guiding you through everything.

They're also guided meditations that you can download onto your phone or your computer.

They're like MP threes and I kind of take you through grief releasing exercises and shadow exercises and then there are journal pages to download with journal prompts to kind of process some of the things.

And it's just, you know, it's like it's like go at your own pace kind of thing.

Because this is some deep, deep work.

And I also offer some coaching to come along with it for those who want to dive a little deeper into it.

It was a labor of love but it would also it.

Yeah, it took a it took a lot of work but I don't want people's lives to have to fall apart like minded.

But it's www.navigationalnarratives.com.

I'm on Instagram but I haven't really started.

I'm just kind of compiling everything that I that I can and trying to put it into like bite size Nuggets that you can like because the work is so deep, you know you only want to give people a little bit at a time because we're already in overwhelm when we find this out.

The last thing you want to do is to continue to overwhelm someone, yes?

Thank you for creating this resource.

It's amazing to see so many more resources, you know, start to come out.

You know, like you said, there weren't a ton seven years ago and beyond.

And so to see more podcasts, this course, books, and other resources for people is incredible.

And the meet ups I I I'm dying to go to a meet up like there's not one in the Jacksonville area but like I get back to LAA lot and so I'm and like with with your retreat like I want to be in the company of other people who have had this experience because I think that could be really healing.

Yes, well, we'll see you in September for sure.

Absolutely.

And I will link all of these resources in the show notes for anyone who's listening right now.

And Dana, just thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing your story.

It's amazing to hear your journey where you started and then taking that all the way to giving back to the community and hearing that you're in such a good place right now and that you have such a good sense of humor about it all.

Like, I think that that's very inspiring.

It can really give hope to a lot of people.

Thank you.

And thank you for this podcast because like I said, for a long time did nothing like that existed.

I can now listen to these podcasts without totally losing it and sobbing for hours.

And you know, it's it's like you said it.

I love it when we use that word community because community is I'm getting choked up again.

It is kind of what saved me.

I think it is what?

Because as much as I love my friends and my family, it was the other people who have experienced this to get the validation that I wasn't crazy and that this was something that was deep and needed to be healed.

And being able to also be there for them was very healing for me.

So I thank you for allowing a platform for for all of us to share our stories and become a community.

Thanks.

Again, to Dana for sharing her story and thank you to everyone who trusted me with your stories this season.

Jennifer, Erica, Daughter, Dee, Ray, Robin, Tina, Jill, Ryan, Pat, Lisa, Angie, Wyatt, Cody, and Cassidy.

I'll be back again in May with more DNA surprises to share.

In the meantime, if this podcast has made a difference in your life, please consider rating and reviewing the podcast on Apple and Spotify.

And if you'd like early access to next season's episodes, join me over on patreon@patreon.com/DNA Surprises.

Until next time.

This episode of DNA Surprises was hosted, produced, and edited by me, Alexis Ourselt.

It was mixed and mastered by Josh Ourselt of Siren Recording Studios.