Finding Out You’re Not Who You Thought You Were

It's no longer unusual to hear stories from clients who've lately made the shocking discovery that their origin story is very different than the one they grew up believing, or from parents who never planned to tell their kids about the circumstances of their conception and birth but suddenly find themselves having to explain long-buried family secrets. Since 2007, direct-to-consumer DNA testing has become so easy and inexpensive that anyone can find out their genetic heritage. In its slipstream, many unexpected truths have been revealed, and a growing number of people are coping with the fallout, suffering from complicated feelings about being lied to by the people they trusted most.

There are many different outcomes for the 1 in 7 Americans found in 2019 by a Pew study to have taken an over-the-counter DNA test. A quarter of them discovered new close relatives. That statistic breaks down to 2.5 percent who are adopted, 2.1 percent conceived through fertility treatments, 1.6 percent through donor insemination, and about 3 percent as misattributed parentage (MP) from an affair, tryst or assault, or other non-parental event (NPE).

Although some offspring in these populations are informed at some point, many more are not. "There's a lot of shame involved for the families who couldn't conceive without help, for the women who were raped or had sex with someone they weren't married to, even for those who adopted their children but never told them about it," says Joan Mantell, MSW, LCSW, who has been counseling infertile, adoptive and assisted parents and their children for over two decades. While open adoption laws as well as DNA technology h ave begun to mitigate some of the stigma, most parents who conceive through assisted reproduction or NPEs still rarely tell their children.

Behind the statistics are the many people for whom family secrets about misattributed parentage are like bombshells waiting to go off. “The day I found out was like my personal 9/11—it turned my world upside down,” says Kara Rubinstein Deyerin, who took a DNA test in preparation for a trip to Africa to look for her roots. Her mother is Caucasian and the man listed as her father on her birth certificate is black. But the DNA test indicated that in fact, the other half of her genetic heritage was not African American but eastern European, white and Jewish. By the time she made that discovery and traced her biological father, he was dead, his son had a terminal illness, and none of the rest of his family was interested in meeting her.

Since that time, she has reached out to others with similar discoveries and become a fierce advocate of the right to know one’s genetic identity, promoting education, mental health initiatives, and engagement through Right to Know, a nonprofit she founded. The organization supports people affected by DNA surprises due to adoption, assisted (donor) conception, or a non-parental event, like the one that resulted in her own conception—a one night stand with a man her mother barely knew and never saw again.

Among other services, the organization offers referral assistance to a network of trained mental health professionals, like Mantell, who have clinical experience with and advanced training in the fallout of parental identity discovery, involving unexpected and unwanted changes in family dynamics and personal upheaval. "Whether through adoption search and reunion or DNA, discovery is just the beginning of the journey," says Mantell, as it was for her when she learned that she was the result of donor-assisted conception.

Individuals and families navigating issues related to adoption, donor conception, and other discoveries, she says, "rewind the most intimate relationship of their lives with the parents who raised them, wondering why the most basic fact of their own existence was kept from them, and what it would have meant to them if they’d known the truth before discovering it this way.” Sometimes the news comes as a relief; they’ve long felt they were different, out of place, like the nerd in the family of athletes. Other times it explains more subtle qualities, singular habits, interests, or personality traits that are atypical in their family.

Many stories about hidden origins have joyful endings but not all: Some genetic parents are delighted to welcome their biological offspring; others are not. Some stories, particularly the ones linking dozens of stranger to one sperm donor, wind up as tabloid fodder.. But all involve real people who must find a way to assimilate life-changing news. Those who learn the genetic truth about their origins, whether they act on that knowledge or not, share a curiosity about their biological parents and the desire to be liked or approved of by them.

No matter how unconventional the cultural constellations and definitions of family become, there are some essential aspects of human nature—the need to know where we came from and to be valued by our progenitors. That seems to be baked into our DNA.

To find a therapist, please visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.