Being a Late Bloomer and Learning a Truer Story
Sigrid grew up a black girl in Philly. Everything was as it seems. She did have a lighter skin-tone; she'd been told she had a mixed-race ancestor. No big deal.
She later learned that she'd been adopted. Now she wasn't so sure of her identity.
Consumer genetic testing came available. She submitted a sample and waited for the results. She was shocked; more European than African. Could she have been Italian all these years?
She learned that genetic testing becomes more accurate when more people do it, and in fact a lot more people did it. She received updates on her analysis, based on the new data. Now she was more African than European. They said, click here if you'd like to be informed of other people with nearly-matching DNA.
Pop, pop, pop went the system. She was notified of siblings, half-siblings, and cousins living in close proximity. She discovered family she didn't know she had. She kept the family she started off with. She felt like, for the first time, she knew who she was.
She sighed. “You turn 65, take a DNA test and find out your whole life is a lot different than you ever thought it was.”
And that's what I have in common with Sigrid. I turned 58, started psychotherapy, and remembered a lot of things. I remember being raped by a priest. I remember my Dad not believing it. I remember having boyfriends. I remember men when I was in the Navy. To be clear, I remembered gay experiences that I'd kept compartmentalized from before my 35-years of marriage to a woman.
I feel like Ingrid felt. You think you know who you are, you think you know your story, and then you see a PTSD expert and find out your whole life is a lot different thaqn you ever thought it was." This is my struggle.