Kerry’s DNA Surprise

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Speaker 1

The TNA surprise Journey can be shocking, upsetting and isolating, but you're not alone and there is hope connection and Community are powerful tools as we process.

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Speaker 2

Because the secret is a wedge.

The secret is a, an elephant in the room

Speaker 3

in its literal form.

It takes up everything and it pushes

away the light.

You don't feel it, you don't see it

consciously, but you feel it in other ways.

So when you return to your ancestral Homeland, or when you finally find the truth, when you finally see that picture that connection, it's it's visceral.

Its internal.

It's It's it's when Harry found the wand in all of them.

Dirty, let's go.

Yes.

It's from you that it's

your real.

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 hours.

Held in July of 2021, I discovered that I'm an end PE someone who is experienced a non paternal event.

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.

In this episode Carrie shares, a complicated story filled with inner generational trauma, secrets, and lies as a quick content.

Notice to listeners, this episode does contain a brief reference to suicide.

If you or anyone, you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide or self-harm please call one eight hundred two seven three talk.

I want to thank Carrie for sharing her unique perspective, on healing and forgiveness.

My name is Carrie.

I'm 45 years old and I'm currently in northeastern Pennsylvania, but I'm born and raised in New York.

Now I'm staying long island Queens.

Nice accent sometimes coffee.

Water daughter.

Yes, I love it.

Without further Ado, what is your DNA surprise story?

Funny enough.

I kind of always knew that I was

In the right place, sort of grew up on the island.

It was a very very small community very, very small town feeling even though it's New York.

And the Rumor around town was that my mom like to step out on my dad, it was a very common rumor.

That was a friend to me when I was a kid and honestly, I didn't think twice like, I never thought that it was true when I was really young, I

thought it was just kids being mean, like, oh, your mom.

Under, you know, this, but I never looked like anybody in my family, I look like my mother.

Surprisingly, a lot right now, but when I was young, very blond hair, and green eyes, and very pale skin, and everyone in my family, looks Sicilian.

Italian, my father, my two brothers, my sister.

They all have dark hair.

Darker skin, pinch straight hair, almost black hair, Darker skin.

And everybody in my family

has blue eyes.

Even my mother.

And my mother has brown hair and blue eyes.

There are some blondes in the family, but because

they're part of like my father's half siblings family.

They're not really blood related to me, right.

You know what I mean?

They are

there, blond their blondness came from their father who was not my grandfather was.

My step-grandfather is my family is a very complex Family full of secrets and lies.

My father was raised by his grandparents but as his parents and his mother was raised as his sister.

Okay?

Yeah.

That's I mean, that's fairly common, right?

Yeah,

yeah, yeah.

You know, and my mother didn't know who her father was.

So we have great examples, set forth here but growing up.

I didn't look like anybody in the family.

They treated me very very Differently and my father at a certain point.

I mean he was very, I don't want to say abusive, I want to say neglectful.

Apathetic, he, he really introduced us.

This is my wife Eileen.

This is my son, John.

My

son James, my daughter, Shannon.

And this is Carrie.

He was a mechanic and he had a toolbox.

And inside the toolbox, he had pictures of his kids but not of me.

Wow.

There were, there were things like that, and they bothered me and I would say things.

And, and my father would say that I was being

dramatic or whatever, because I was like, the family whipping post for everything that was wrong.

Being a very young age when nobody else did.

Like I was just treated differently.

I look differently.

I felt like I was different,

then they made jokes that I was the mailman's kid, or then when they found out that the mailman was

a woman, it was the milk.

And kid, I was not man's kid.

I mean, all all these different.

It was

constant my entire life

that I was somebody else but it was a joke, like it wasn't real.

Like was there.

Do you think that there was truth to that?

Like no.

You're absolutely right.

So yeah, my dad's suspected.

Okay.

So my Mom apparently had had multiple Affairs, my He's got divorced when I was 10 years old because my father went to wake up my mother.

And she said, not now, Frank and my father's name is Richie.

Ha

ha ha, wow.

Wow, and again the whole neighborhood knows this.

Yeah, this is a,

everybody knows

this.

I know that detail because the neighbors kids told me, not my parents.

I can, I gosh, okay.

Yeah, everybody knew right?

So my mom

multiple affairs.

And around the time that my parents got divorced, my father told me that he had a vasectomy before.

I was born.

Wow,

that he didn't think that.

I was his

now.

Fast forward years later.

He'll say that he never said that.

And my father is a pathological liar like to an extreme he makes up War stories that aren't true.

He

decided he was an alcoholic one day and started going to AA.

But nobody ever mentions him drinking, you know, like

he's just he's in half.

He's you can't believe anything, he

says, and then I

asked bull people that I know to be trustworthy.

So almost everybody is dead, but my mother had a best friend.

Somebody, she grew up with from when she was like, 16 years old.

My aunt, she's not my real aunt, but that's what I call her.

And I know who they who their friends were at the time

and things like that.

And I've done deep diving here to try and

find out.

Just my family's true story because there's so many

Two lies,

everybody lies about everything somehow.

So you can't believe that like I just never believed it and then it turns out that he didn't have a vasectomy before.

I was born, he had a vasectomy like three years after I was born.

So that's quashed

that you know.

So once again, it was just stupid rumors and everybody lies can't believe anything, anybody

says.

And then I got married and I had my own kids, and I actually stopped talking to my family for a long time because they were very abusive and dysfunctional and it was a horrible situation, but they were still my family.

Like, I didn't doubt that they were,

it was a small voice in the back of your head, you know,

and then two of my daughters, develop this kidney condition that is hereditary and genetic.

And now, I've learned that there's a difference between the two when this happened and genetic means, you know, this is what

happens when you and this guy makes your your, your stuff

together.

Anything can happen with the mix of the genes.

It seems your jeans but now what you have is

also hereditary.

So after this every generation and have it, but that doesn't mean that because you have something that's hereditary that you received it from somebody before because this could be, the genetics were love it, so to speak.

And I didn't have any of these kidney issues in my family, my husband didn't have any of these kidney issues in his family, and I continued the cycle.

All of abuse.

Unfortunately, I married a very horrible man.

A very abusive men and he would

constantly remind me that my own family didn't love me.

Like he was the only person who would ever put up with me and he would always tell me like he's not your father that's not your family, you know what I mean, they're not your

family.

And I remember when my middle daughter

was christened, my family did show up and people kept coming up

to me and saying, where's your family?

And I said, that's them at that table and they're like,

you don't look anything like I heard of all the time.

You don't look anything like them.

So, around the time that my kids got sick, I decided that I wanted to get a DNA test, but back then, still, this is still, you know, 15 almost 20 years ago.

It was like $400 to get a test between me and a

sibling.

I wouldn't be able to get it with my dad

because the thing is, is I wasn't

talking to my family and I didn't want them to know why I was getting the test.

So I told them that I was getting genetic

testing to see if you know, one of my kids needed a kidney, would we be able to come through the family,

right?

Hmm.

My dad.

I automatically wouldn't be able to ask him that way because he's too old.

Is that health problems?

He had given me his kidney, right?

My sister to test with me

and she said, no, like, she didn't care.

If one of my kids died, she was going to give a kidney away.

So there's no way to test so that I have

this drunk vagrant brother who lives in Vegas.

I had I'm one of four siblings.

Oldest hung himself.

My sister is, let's not talk about that one.

My other brother is

a vagrants and most of the time I'm homeless, we didn't all turn out.

Well, regardless of who are paternity, was

but so printhead agreed to do the testing,

but I had to save up to $400 and I was I was halfway there.

I was it like I don't

know.

Close to 300.

I think and then I got sick.

I got sick with this.

Really

rare skin disease called hidradenitis suppurativa

and basically was lost my arm.

It,

I had to go in the hospital and I had to have surgery and I had this huge affection that happens either, you know, in your armpit or in your groin.

And luckily, it was not in my groin, it's in my armpit.

But at the time that this happened, I remembered that when I was young, my dad had this same thing.

Well, I didn't know the name of it, all I know is my dad was very It to have surgery on his armpit and he laid in the bed room for days.

And I remember like back then they used to put like this iodine, looking stuff Betadine all over you and you're just like arms

raised and it was all yellow and I'm like, there's my proof.

Like, I don't need to save the money and spend the $400 on this test.

There's the proof,

he's my dad.

Unless my

mom had sex with two people who have this rare

freaking skin disease,

How likely is that?

At.

So a bat put hear your questions about my mind to do.

Yeah and I

stopped looking.

I stopped thinking

about it.

I 100% knew that my dad was my dad

and I was like all happy.

Like I'm never going to tell him.

Like I know and I'm never going to tell him I'm good because he's treated me this

way.

His whole life.

I'm never going to say anything to

him, you know?

But I know the truth, you know.

And that's it big to my family for many years and we face Fast forward to last year, right before the pandemic.

My father is very old and alone and you can cat food M in an apartment in New York that, he can't afford these getting evicted from, he's a veteran and they're offering them just a shelter.

He can't bring his possessions, he can't.

So now, this man that I don't talk to and having spoken to, in years, and we've had a terrible relationship, my whole life.

I, he has to come live here in Pennsylvania with me because there's nobody to take care of him.

My oldest brother is dead.

My other brother is a vague.

Current.

My sister is living in Mississippi and doing her thing and

I believe that she wanted him to come down there but he was not willing to do

that for whatever reason again, you can't believe half the things he says even now and it's time that I found him.

He was talking to dead people.

That weren't there and eating cat food, like I said.

So I was like, all right we have two houses

here in Pennsylvania, my husband, I'm remarried.

I'm not with the first husband anymore.

He went off and left for 26 year old.

So I had four kids

and I was single and I was struggling but I found the man of my dreams and I married a remarried.

He's a wonderful man.

Great father, we have a good life.

I can't complain.

We have two houses, one of them.

We actually rented out so that's it.

My father's going into the rental house, a half hour from me here and I go and I check on him regularly and I take care of them despite the relationship that we had, it has now grown into something very different.

We've become very

close.

That's good.

That's

wonderful.

Yeah, it's an amazing story Benson.

How we've put a lot of our demons to rest.

My family has kind of come back together in a way, not fully, and never will be well about a year or so ago.

ex-husband decided to be.

So fun until his 22-year old daughter, he doesn't think that he's her father.

And he knows what this did to me my whole life

like we spent 17 years together, he knows what this did to me, and he made

the decision to do this to his child when he lost the ability to abused me.

Personally, he uses the children to hurt me and tries to turn them against me at all times.

insists that I've, you know, because he cheated, he wants to verify, you know, validate that by saying I cheated on him, the whole marriage I've used.

All of the stories that he spends.

Oh, the victim that he is terrible.

But I know that all four of my children are his and he would do

this to me over the years and I would be like, we're going to get a DNA test and we could never afford it, but I would be like we're gonna do it.

He'd be like, no and he would take it back like I was just mad, you know, he would say it all the time.

And so when he said it to her this time again, divorced remarried, you're not under my control anymore.

I I believe you're still hooked on this thing.

I haven't heard that argument a long time, but all right, as soon as he said it and he told her I was like, we're

getting that ancestry test because his whole family

did ancestry, and they had a DNA surprise there, they're everywhere.

They're just really years ago.

When ancestry first came

out, they all got tested and they all came back, not my husband, but his own, his aunt, and his cousins, and it, Out that his aunt, has a different father than the rest of them, and none of them know other than

again, she had blond hair and pale skin.

When the rest of them all looks you know, differently, hmm.

Irish in there.

And every time there's Irish in there, someone who's like oh it's just the Irish side, no matter what always happens, you know?

Because the Irish were so.

So my husband said, you know,

sorry my ex-husband put this

train in motion by telling my daughter that he was in her

father but he is Is and I went, and I got the test and sure enough, my

daughter's DNA came back and did

it had said that she was his chief related to his, his family, you know, obviously didn't do it, but she was related to his family.

So that was the proof.

But, the weird thing is, is that

it said, she wasn't Italian or German, but but my dad's Italian and German How can you not be Italian and German?

And I knew like almost immediately but I was I did what everyone else does like

it's wrong or DNA, doesn't break

down all the way you know.

Like she didn't get that part of me, you know.

So I was like I got to do my own now.

I got to see what my own breaks down is, you know, and because there's that part of my brain that knew

I didn't do ancestry.

I didn't just want to know what my ethnicity was if I just wanted to My ethnicity was I would have done ancestry just like my daughter did just like everybody else did.

But I didn't, my father has a sister, a half-sister his two half sisters

but he, you know, one of them is on 23andMe.

So I said I'm going to do

23andMe because there was there was that part of my brain that knew right away whether or not I

wanted to admit it you know what I mean?

It was a part of me that knew as soon as I wasn't Italian that I wasn't my father's,

I knew it but I again I was just it was a mistake but I'm gonna do 20.

Three and me because I, you know, I want the medical report.

You know, that's what I told myself that, you know, I always strong.

Oh my gosh.

so you did 23andMe

and I'm not related to my my Aunt Barbara,

jeez.

weird.

So I called my sister and now I make my sister do it.

And my sister did it and sure enough.

If we're half-sisters and it's just, I'm Irish English, Scottish and Portuguese.

When before I was Irish and Sicilian, like equally, you know, like it was my home, the Italian mom thing.

Like I see other thing because I didn't look at talion, like I do of hard into Italian, you know what I mean?

Like I was the Italian mom.

Nobody Cooks the sauce like I do, like, yeah.

So how did you feel how did I was

actually the most offensive

part to me?

I cried for days that I was in Italian.

Yeah, well because that's it's tied to your identity and like you said you didn't feel like you fit it, you know, stereo, it's like that way.

And that's like I always knew.

So that part didn't smack me as much as much as the reality of what it meant.

That's what really helped me, you know.

And then I then I had

to know, but how do I know how do I find out?

Everybody is dead.

How do I find out who my mother secretly sacked on the side?

45 years ago?

When did you find out?

Right around the spring April.

If this lot of this, yeah.

Yeah, this

year.

And so your mother passed and you say years ago, 20 years ago, so you couldn't ask her now.

So what did you

do?

So I decided to get a little crazy

and I did a deep internet dive.

You know what

I mean?

And I

also contacted, I contacted all of my

mom's friends.

That I had contacted previously asking about my father's lies, you know, my father had these War stories that weren't true and he had that

vasectomy story and you know, I needed to know people that knew my mom

from when she was young and through this I

built a small list of names of people.

They

remembered my mom and it might be a possibility, one of them was

just a family friend that they were, you know, I'll close with another one was

A border that my grandmother had a house and she rented out rooms to borders.

From Ireland, who came over from Ireland, one was a border from Ireland, The third name.

Actually, my sister came up with

my sister said, you know, I remember this guy that mommy and daddy used to fight about all the

time, and when you go into the list of names, you know, people that you're associated with.

None of these names were in the most common names.

It's in ancestry.

It shows you the most common names of people that you're related to.

And the names that I'm related to our all the most common names of existence.

It's, it's

Johnson, Jones Brown, you know, like, there's no way to narrow anything down.

It's going to say that does not help none of.

Those are the three

names that I've narrowed down, who is the possibility that my mother slept with him in the mid-70s?

And this, this is just three.

The people of heard of, who knows, you know, I know my mom was a drinker.

What

if she was sexually assaulted

and, you know, in the 70s And you're a married woman

with three kids at home because I'm the youngest of four kids.

So she was a married woman with three kids at home after working in a bar and something

happens.

You think she's going to tell anybody, not the 70s, I had no idea what

could have happened.

All I know is I have these three

possible names.

None of them match up with any of the most common names and I'm related to like 20,000 people on

Ancestry.

You can't go through each name individually, you

know, I started going through the closest DNA matches and Sending messages like, hey, I want to know how I'm

related to you and this woman got back in touch with me and she says, I have

no idea how were related.

We're like,

second cousins, but I'll give you access to my family tree and I said, okay?

Because that's the other thing on Ancestry, you know, you could look all those people but if they're not showing their tree have no idea, just you have no idea who you're related to you somehow.

But this one woman just it was the most random thing because nobody else had responded to me.

But this one woman responded and Her last name did not match any of the last names that I know to

be, you know, of my suspicions.

But she gives me the, the access to the family tree.

And as soon as I open her family tree, I see it.

All of them are and Link is one of the names on the three that I had the three had

none down.

I can't remember the other two

but one of them was so I said, oh my

goodness.

I don't know how to say this other than

I don't really know who my dad is, and I have a list of people that she's possibly had an affair with

last name is, and use so many lives in your thing.

Do you know of a,

your family?

And she did not.

And look at how

you know, hopes dad, right?

Yeah, but, but at the same time, it doesn't seem right, you know.

So I type into ancestry and sure enough, I'm huh, let me just, you know, an ancestral G related.

So

it's got to be like but how?

So then I

actually ordered a subscription to like that newspaper.

Archive thing that you can get through ancestry.

Yeah, it's like a premium feature.

And I decided that I wanted to find caught himself and just ask him what he knew about my mom

you know and maybe that would helpfully get me somewhere.

Maybe he had brothers or cousins or maybe there's something, you know.

So I

Went to the newspaper thing and I typed in the name and I narrowed it down to Nassau County and I was looking

for births

obituaries anything like that.

And sure enough.

I

found an obituary for a mother

who was survived by his son Junior.

They lived in a town very close to my town

and now I understood that this for car was an initial.

So I went back to that woman's family tree and

sure enough she hasn't Great-grandfather.

We're splintered off by a great grandfather.

There was a third brother and a family tree, so that's why those two families didn't even know each other.

And now, the obituary said, Myron senior was survived by his

wife and her name was Elizabeth

and I'm related to a whole bunch of fernet that's on 23andMe.

And by the way, the Portuguese Portuguese in Portuguese.

So this is it.

This is the

guy Yeah,

this is definitely it.

This is, I'm his daughter now.

I got to find him.

So,

did you?

So then I paid for one of those, you know, 30, 1999.

You could do everything online.

It is terrifying.

You really can I know.

It's in junior.

Can't be the most common new in the world, but so, I did a background check,

I found out where he lived, I found out how many kids do you have?

I looked at everybody up on Facebook, he was not on Facebook.

His current piss, his previous wife had passed, his current wife is on Facebook and two of his three children are on Facebook but everything is shut down in private.

Like he can't really see anything

but I was able to see some pictures, you know, people put profile pictures or whatever they're made public.

And I just sat there staring at those pictures man like it's just Like I feel like I can see myself and I

everybody I talk to nobody else sees it.

It was even more offensive to me.

Now that like that, I don't see it.

You don't look like them.

Fuck you.

I feel like I do, I see it now.

You know what itself?

Yeah, I do.

Like, I can see

my facial expressions

in some of the ways that their mouths, it's or like I can't explain it.

I could first of all my hair color this is not well it Now, this is my natural hair color, but growing up, my hair was lighter.

My my it's not almost

black or brown and my half sister has my very similar hair color.

Only, mine looks more reddish.

I don't know, like I

saw myself, whether anybody else sees it or not.

I saw myself.

And it took me a little bit

of nerve, but with these backgrounds, actually get everything.

So, I got his

email address, I got a phone number, I got an address so I can send an email, I can send a letter, I can, what should I do?

do

so I sent an email and I sent a text and then I waited

And I the email and the text that the same thing, I said, hi,

my name is Carrie and my mother was Eileen and I was hoping to talk to you about my mother.

Usually because my mom was a very well-loved

person, everybody wants to talk about my mom

the long time, everybody misses her.

You know.

That's always

going to be a getter, you

know, everyone's gonna want to talk about my mom.

It's a close down the road for her

funeral.

Yeah, it

was Tremendous.

But so he called me back the very next day or next day and I told him

and you know at first it seemed to go really well you seem very open to the he accepted it immediately.

You didn't doubt it didn't need to see a DNA

test and and I was very hopeful that I could possibly get to know them and build something, I don't know, just know a new set

of a new side, like I I just want to know, I just want to know them and I don't I don't want anything from

them.

I just want to know them but he hasn't quite come to

terms with what he calls his sinful past.

It turns out that my dad is a deacon in the Baptist Church,

and he was cheating on his wife.

With my mother.

Obviously my mother was cheating on him.

Her husband as well had three small children at home, and his wife was actually probably eight or nine months pregnant.

When I was

conceived, how did they meet did?

Did your family attend that church or?

No, no, my family's devoutly.

Catholic know.

My mom and him both did taxes.

My mom was the like, in the creator of the side hustle.

She, my mom worked for the telephone company whole time and then she sold Avon and she sold Tupperware, and she did people's taxes that.

Clean

people steps and she just did everything and she's very smart woman and she started.

She took an H and R Block course.

And she met this man through an H and R Block course.

And they both had just, you know, done people's taxes on the side and we're friends.

And my sister remembered that when she was young, my mom would take her to court house because Ken, had a son that was her age.

And her in the sun would play well, Mom and Carmon to do taxes.

There's an excessive.

And my sister remembered that my parents used to fight because

my father was jealous of Carl but again, nobody takes anything.

My father says seriously

like it.

All right.

Let's say, you know, even though those things are true like we know Certain things to be true but he's just such a drama queen anyway.

He makes the the time like my father's.

One of those people where if he thought that it would make you like him, he would

tell you that he shot Lincoln or he was on the grassy.

Knoll he spins that are so beyond not

true.

Mmm-hmm he seemed very open and receptive but he didn't quite know how to tell his family and he wanted to

pray.

On it.

And he asked that I not contact him that he contact me and the immediately made me feel dirty and like the other woman

and like this is probably very similar to a spend that you tell women, right?

I'm not going to leave my wife or if I'm going to leave my wife I just need time.

You know, this isn't a mistress you have on the side and and I decided to give him time and everybody said that same thing.

Give him time. you know, but time when two weeks and he does reach out randomly at first, it was like, you know,

Once every two weeks and then it became like once every six weeks now, it's been nine weeks, you know, since the last time, you know, it's um

and he found out actually the day after Father's Day.

I text send that text and that email

on Father's day.

But so now it's been approximately nine weeks since the last time I heard from him.

So we're going on like six months since he's found out.

I told him the last couple of times I'm really not comfortable with secrets and lies.

I'm really not comfortable.

I don't know how you try to get to know somebody every time.

I can't just call him and talk to him or share anything, you know, like, I have to wait for him to contact me.

And then when he does contact me, he kind of talks to me about

God, the whole time and

that's like a whole different complex thing.

I'm not religious.

And so, I feel like it's so, I don't know,

it's so complicated becomes more and more

offensive as time.

Goes on.

Yeah, the point.

Now for anything to do with them, wait, until he dies and contact my siblings.

So that's your plan.

You're going to wait, you're not going to contact them anytime soon.

I don't want to if I ever want to have a relationship with

somebody, like, I'm a very good mediator in some ways growing up in the environment that I did.

And

if you want to have any Headway, smash it in, with a sledgehammer, ain't gonna be the best way.

And if I come in against His wishes until your father didn't want to tell you this but I'm telling you

that blow up his family.

I don't know how welcome that's going to

make me.

Right?

It's his decision to tell his family

I can

it's almost like outings somebody in the lgbtq, you know what I mean?

Like it's it's not place and furthermore I haven't told my own father

so your father doesn't know.

Okay now that he's here, this man that I had no relationship with my whole life

and I'm taking care of him.

And my eldest brother is dead and he is nobody left.

There's nobody I'm not taking more children away from him.

I'm not

I'm not bringing him back 40

years in pain to a woman who just I mean

I don't want to take it away from him.

He's got so little.

The man is almost suicidal on a daily basis.

He's got very little to live

for He's old.

He knows he's done wrong and it would just be cruel.

I'm the only thing he has, and then yield to him that I'm charity.

I'm taking care of her medical charity.

And I'm not, I'm taking care of him because regardless of how shitty and parents they were they they taught me something about loyalty and family, which is why I want to get a kind of.

I never got the family I wanted and I think I put too much hope into finding a better family on.

Other side.

And then it's not there, either.

And you know what?

I already got one dad that didn't want me.

I don't

want a second one.

Yeah, I'm so sorry.

That's that's so painful.

That's so painful.

It's remarkably.

So and everybody in my life seems to not get that, that's what I was going to ask is what's what is the reaction of your family, your your children, your husband everybody agrees not to

tell my dad with the exception of a few people there's very few people

and I'm actually one of them.

It depends on the day.

So so much of me feels like he does have a right to know that he was right?

I mean

he beats himself up now how terrible he was as a father and I'm not going to take that away was

so bad father regardless of if you know not that's what you should have.

You should have done that, you know, but

it might be a little validating to know that you were right,

you know?

But I

don't.

Again, he's old

everybody who loves his Ted.

His one son is dead.

His other son might as well be dead.

He's a vagrant and Many other things.

Yeah, it's a double-edged sword because in some ways it's like yeah we deserve to know the truth on the other side of it, it is very painful and for somebody who's older and back to the drama queen aspect, I'm not kidding.

Like he's still living in Vietnam, he's still living in.

You know, my mother didn't love me.

My mother raised me as her

sister that, you know, he still

living in all sorts of pain.

From years ago, everything is fresh and new.

We're going to add on that.

That and this just another thing you know and then is he going to let me take care of him, you know what'll happen

then so you don't wish to have a relationship with your biological father.

Now based on his reaction and he would have to show

me a different moral character.

I've spent my life in

secrets and lies and I've devoted my life to being against that.

There's a reason I just found my own family for almost 20 years to get away from the drama.

And the madness and the lies and the

craziness, and I raised my kids on this.

The worst thing you could ever do, in the world is lie to me.

And, and we went down this path and I went

through almost 30 years of therapy, I help people.

I turned my life around, like, I don't want this, I want a normal life and, and if, and if you want to talk to me, I don't

believe in one way

relationships.

I don't believe in secrets and lies, you're gonna have to come clean with your family.

You're gonna have to accept that I have a right to know them but they don't want to know me.

That's fine.

But they should have that choice and the gonna get it when you die because I said that her Bloods.

my other thing.

I can't help it.

And what was his reaction to that?

It is

not a reactive man and says, well, I could,

I could see why you would feel that way, you know, I can't even digest what he says, it's all so much emotion when I'm on the phone with him.

But mostly, it's always, it always brings it back to God,

or how he's sorry, and he's just, he's Unsure how to deal with things or how to move forward and to be patient and to give him time, I do all those things.

I don't contact him, I respect his wishes.

Wait, did he quietly?

Did he tell

you anything more about his relationship with your mother

know very little?

There was no love

story.

He he doesn't even have much memories that he can

reflect on other than to, you know, say yes it happened but probably only

wants, you know, he don't, because he doesn't remember it, you

know, so much which okay?

Like, I don't think he's

being honest with himself

still.

I see him.

I think that

he feels like God is punishing him.

He bought say that, but he's more than once said that, you know, I'm a product of his sinful past his sinful ways is, you know, like he doesn't see how hurtful that is.

I'm not, and I'm not a product of one, you know, people, having sex is not a sin.

I'm bored.

After the

sexual Revolution, Come to terms with this.

Everything has sex except for the certain animals that don't.

But yeah, we do like, hmm.

This is and and not only, is it not a sin, it's human like you did something.

So very human.

So very human that it created another human.

Okay, you weren't faithful to your wife but okay.

God says you shouldn't do this but you still didn't this happen.

Like I don't understand how 45 years later, it could be so hard to say I did this and I said that to him on the last conversation, I had with them again 89 weeks ago.

I said I I know you feel that I'm putting a lot of pressure on you here

to open up, do the right

thing I said, but whether you realize it or not, my concern is for you.

Like I'm thinking right now I'm thinking as a wife.

As my husband came to me and told me he had a child years ago, the didn't know about and genuinely didn't know.

Because by the way, my mom didn't tell him.

My mom just stop talking to him,

okay?

And in the 70s how is she going to know?

You know unless she specifically had never had sex with my dad, you know what I mean, and only had sex with this one guy.

They didn't have DNA test back then.

If it was just a one time or two times bling she probably thought it was my dad's,

there's no way to know, you know, she just put it out.

I'm

sure my mom just put it out of her head and didn't think of it.

I never saw the guy again that

part Rings true to know, and my mom.

So if my husband came to me and said that he had his

child, but he never knew about just found out to, you know, I would absolutely be forgiving.

But what's to forgive, I didn't even know you, right?

He didn't neglect until you have a child that you didn't know about.

And You found out

four months ago.

Now we have a problem you

found out for months ago,

How can you not say

anything the longer you go on

the harder?

It's going to be to tell them

because now you can see I've known for a year.

I've known for

like

that would make me mad.

I think you're good in the beginning, but the longer you get like I, I am urging you to tell Somebody because

you can't keep it in.

And if you believe the things you say, you believe about God.

I don't know how you sit in church, every Sunday.

I don't know how you counsel

other people about their sins.

How are you doing this?

And those conversations tend to push them away?

Guess because it the conversations, keep

getting further and further apart,

but I'm not Adam, I'm not gonna Force, you can't force somebody to do the right thing.

That's kind of you that really is.

Because I think, especially, When you're on this side of it and you want that radical honesty.

I think it can be challenging to perpetuate that and I so badly want to know my other siblings.

And like and

okay, baby.

We not of us are like anything.

I don't know if none

of it could work out but how do you know

I've always felt like I wanted to like I needed to be connected to something and I wasn't I wasn't rooted in anything.

And my mom has been gone so long and I don't, it's just I wanted something to grab.

Hold of.

Yeah, this is very disappointing,

but I can't

forcing.

That is not going to make that happen.

That's going to drive

it away.

You know, you catch more flies with

honey.

But I think I'm done with him.

So once again I think I will say it again.

I'm blunt.

I can't fit

in.

And he needs to know that you've already told me

more than enough about the kind of man

you are.

So I'm just going to wait for you to

pass.

I'm not gonna

violate your wishes and you obviously don't want to disrupt your life.

This isn't something you're willing to face head-on.

So I'm going to let it go for now and preciate it, if you just leave me because otherwise I'm going to sit here.

Wondering when is the phone going to ring?

When is he going to call me again?

And I have I'm counting weeks.

This is ridiculous.

It's been eight weeks every Friday.

It's another week.

I don't want to do that.

Again, I'm with one father that didn't love me.

Like I can't put myself through this again,

so I'd like to put you out of my head for now and

so I but I can't tell him that.

So the next time he calls me,

that's so frustrating.

And I was gonna do it the

last time, but everyone calls.

I want to give him the opportunity to be like I told someone and he just want.

Yeah, you know, and it's

like I want to be a dark dirty

secret, you're not you're not And that's how I was conceived.

It just makes it more offensive.

Where would you say that you are at with the journey?

It sounds like you're done with your biological father unless he makes some radical changes.

What are your feelings toward your mother?

It's funny.

I was angry

very briefly, but

I can't hold on to it.

It's kind of like trying to cup water in your hands.

It's full for a second and then it drains and it's so much because I know what it's like to feel alone in an empty

marriage,

I know what it's like

to not want to go home at night and wish you had a different life.

I know what it's like to not feel loved.

My mother didn't know her.

Father.

She didn't know where she came from herself.

Her mother was a very cold forbidden woman.

I just I've been through a very rough life.

And that is made me a deeply compassionate person.

Not just words my mother, but towards everybody in some of my worst most horrible times.

There was never anybody there for me.

I was alone.

Very young and I never wanted that for any back.

I literally can't sleep at night.

If I know that there's somebody.

I've is you know, confirmed somebody I know and paid and I can't I'm not helping somehow as a mother I can't fathom the choices that my mother and me my mother did things.

I would never do.

My mother didn't do things that I would do every day of the week.

When I think of my mom, I don't think of her like

a mother.

I think of way she held me when I was at the beach because I'm scared or the way the sunshine in her eyes,

she's been gone for so long.

I just it's like the little girl in me.

Yearns for that because that was the only thing that loves me growing up, my family was not close, but my mother left me.

I knew my mother loves me and I knew my mother, I knew that feeling in that sense.

And those are the things I think about.

When I think about my mom, I don't think about what a terrible mother.

She was surely, she

put everything before us.

She was not the best mother in the world in many ways, and she was

a drunk, but she loved me.

purely in a way that honestly, nobody is ever.

Love of my life.

Nothing, she did wrong with me anymore because she was just trying to live and she was in pain and I can't stand to see anybody in pain.

I've we're all in pain, it's the most confounding thing, the whole world.

We all have our own

pain, it's just

always different, but it's always the same.

Yeah, it's always the pain of death.

Grief, there's always the joy of Life birth sun rises.

It's like this big complex web of everything that confounds me and says speechlessness.

But into nonsensical babbling about how the universe is profound, we're all connected by our experiences that are also different but also the same.

Just living trying to

survive and that

hurt.

Beloved.

This want to be loved, so true.

Thank you for sharing that.

That was really beautiful.

That's really beautiful.

Sorry.

No, no, I I needed to hear that.

So I'm sure that somebody listening need just to hear that too.

So, thank you.

What advice would you give to parents, who may be keeping a DNA surprise secret from their child?

But every experience is different, and no.

Cookie cutter.

Answer is going to fit every situation.

You have to take so many things into consideration because truth It's not just a right

but it's a responsibility.

And it can be a weapon of dangerous.

One, Not everybody's capable.

I mean, you gotta think like Jack Nicholson, you can't handle the

truth.

Not a pretty cat man, like

really true.

Not everybody's

mentally, or emotionally stable.

Not everybody is did

in the truth to themselves.

Self-awareness is a struggle for us, all And not all not, all of us, even know.

We're on that struggling.

Ah, not trying to be self-aware.

And for you to literally change somebody's reality.

You have to take that as a responsibility at most care and it's not right for everybody.

That's a really interesting perspective.

And I think if somebody's asking

questions that they have a right to the answer, but other than that, truth should be taken carefully.

Everything depends I'm not telling my dad, but everybody knows but my dad and

my dad was the one who knew in the beginning.

Yeah, yeah.

What advice would you give someone like us?

Somebody who's discovered that they are in NP

e.

Go online and find support groups and I see online because they're almost impossible to find, you know, in life, you know?

But the support group

has been the most amazing thing

like Like, just, I mean, obviously, some people have to do the whole

I got to find out where I come from and track down their ancestry and maybe I wanted to insist.

I want to visit, you know, like I always wanted to go to Ireland.

Now, I want to go to Portugal,

you know, I always want Italy.

I still want to go to Italy.

It's been really interesting almost everyone that I've spoken to who's an N Pei has like this Primal urge to visit where they originated, you know, culturally and everything.

In a way that I don't hear so much from people who are not npes and I think that that's a really interesting.

I think it's because we spent so much of our life, not feeling a connection that you want that physical place to lay

your hand and

go.

This is where I am from.

Where I know years and years of progress made this happen and there's there's something very Deep and Primal in that urge to know where you're from, she feel connected to something.

And even when people die, you'll see very

often, you know, we did either they have the urn, The

Cremation will touch the urn, or they'll go to the grave and the, your hand right on the grave.

That's where they are.

That's where your connection.

Your where your soul is feel it inside, that thing that

science can't explain that.

so, as since you need to feel connected to that and after feeling

disconnected from our own families for so long, my biggest advice is to do anything that gives you that feeling Whatever that is, if that means, you need to talk to other

people, if that means you need to make a

scrapbook and then bury that scrapbook, you never talk about it ever again,

if that means that you need to

do an entire ancestry DNA documentary and start interviewing, celebrities about how you're related to the

mall then do it, whatever it is, you need to do you, give you that feeling that you've known a void in your entire life?

And I have that, I have that filled already.

I don't need my biological dad now, knowing just knowing

forgiveness is important and you're not going to feel better until you let go of the anger.

Anyway, anger Fester's?

Yeah, and you wouldn't be here like you wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that.

He showed, whatever

lies, whatever came from that

you're here and you can do things differently.

And that actually is.

My number one lesson in

life is never let other people's behavior.

Determine your own.

Yes, that's so true.

I think, especially for us, that are breaking those generational Cycles.

We all know like all of our secrets are out now.

Well, not all of them, instead of little my mom's dad is I think.

Actually, that is my next part of my journey is getting those DNA angels to seek out my mom's

biological father, so we can find out You know, where we come from

there?

Oh, that'd be amazing.

Good luck with that.

Well, I'll get the answers.

She never had.

Well, Carrie, thank you so much for being so generous with your story.

I think that your perspective on everything is so wise and reasonable and fair to everyone involved.

And it's really nice to hear that perspective, and to hear somebody that's kind of emerged from the other side of some of the anger.

And, and feeling that so many of us have when we first make the discovery, Well, I thank you for reaching out and I am more than honored to be a participant in this podcast and share my story and hopefully somebody else can take comfort in knowing that there is many ways that you can

see the same story.

And it is the same for all of us even if it's different.

Yeah, thanks again, to carry for sharing her story.

If you have a DNA surprise story you'd like to share, please email, DNA surprises at gmail.com until next time,