Secrets & Shame

Trigger warning: Gun Violence, Murder, Adultery & Adoption are discussed in this episode.

Man, you need to strap in for a rollercoaster of lies, adultery and deception in this episode.

Trigger warning: adultery, adoption, murder and gun violence.

Katie's story will blow your mind and her gentle yet firm ideology surrounding truth and honesty will put a fire under your bum to live your life with more integrity and compassion.

After finding out as an adult her daddy was not her biological father, Katie and her siblings unravel years of generational secrets and shame. 

I loved this story and I can't wait for you to ride the wave and meet us on the other side. 🌊

Transcript

SPEAKER_03: 0:00

The Uncommon Expose, where I'm changing your life by sharing someone else's. Will you help me change someone's life by hitting subscribe? Trigger warning. This episode discusses gun violence, murder, adultery, and adoption. If you find any of these things triggering, please do not listen.

SPEAKER_01: 0:20

Alrighty, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for sharing your story. I don't know if you feel like this, but to me, when you gave me the very brief description, it's a little bit like days of our lives. Like this is kind of the stuff where you go, who thinks of this? And you're the actual real life example of the stories that we see on TV. So I will get you to introduce yourself, give a little spiel about what you're going to be talking about, then we just crack on. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00: 0:46

Well, thank you so much for having me on. Yes, you're welcome. And I agree. It very much is like a bit of a days of your lives uh episode, or maybe even a few episodes into one. Yes. So my name is Katie Delmont. I'm an author, somatic coach, and a yoga teacher. Yeah. So we'll start at this year. Um at 38 years old, which actually one year ago, I'm 39 now. I found out that the man who raised me is not my biological father. Yeah. Gasp.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15

Yes, exactly. Same right 38 years thinking that one man is your father. Yes. Well, we'll crack them, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:22

Yeah. So it wasn't actually a shock. So when I first found out, I was actually at 6 a.m. Monday morning. I was sitting on my meditation cushion. And it was a gift from my mother-in-law for a Christmas present. She was like, Oh, what do you want? And we're like, oh, we've always wanted to do Ancestry.com. Okay. And is, and I'm sitting down, I'm like, let me just check my email because that's what you do. You get, you know, distracted before you meditate. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And your ancestry.com results aren't awesome. So I clicked on it. I went to the page, and the man who raised me is 100% Polish. And there was no Eastern European on my map, except for 2% Jewish. There was like that part of Eastern Europe was highlighted, but I was like, why isn't any other Eastern European? And then I start to think that my dad was lied to. I was like, well, maybe he's lying, or maybe he was told to lie. Then I was got a little bit more curious, and I went over to my matches, and there was this name that popped up, and it said 19% of your DNA matches with this Jerry Badeau. And I'm like, Jerry Badeau, that sounds quite familiar. And it says it's your half-brother or uncle. And it's like, nobody can share that much DNA with you unless they are blood related. Right. I don't believe they like gave other names in it. If somebody else has taken theancestry.com, your results are in the system. Oh. This is why all these revelations are now coming to because everybody's matching. Yeah. So if these people had never done it, I would have never known. Wow. And it's like the universe telling you about something. Wow. And I love that it was a gift from my mother-in-law because let's just say she's probably not my most favorite person in the world. And I love that like she literally gifted me this.

SPEAKER_01: 3:13

When you say mother-in-law, the mother-in-law of the man that you grew up believing in the world. No, my husband's my husband's. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 3:21

So yeah, yeah. And so, yes, like she had 19% of DNA. And as soon as I saw it, I know. So 20 years ago, my brother, who is also adopted, and we'll get into that. Yeah, yeah. He told me to my face, he came to me when I was 18, he said, Kate, I don't think that daddy is your dad. I think it's Jerry. And I said, No way, I've got daddy's blue eyes. You know, look at my bow leggings. I look Polish. I like I'm blonde hair blue eyes. I look Polish no way. Never brought it up to my mom, never brought it up to my brother. Ever again, I shoved it down in that subconscious brain.

SPEAKER_01: 3:57

Did you genuinely at that time think that he was making it up? Or was there a tiny little bit of it was a tiny little?

SPEAKER_00: 4:03

Because I'm like, well, it could very much be the truth because she was in this uh an affair for years, and my mom had multiple affairs. And again, this was also another secret that we just all knew, but we just kept inside that my mom had affairs, but we just didn't talk about it. Yeah, okay. And so when he told me, I know I was hysterical. I was crying, I was like, there was a part of me that wanted to deny it, but there was a part of me that knew it was true at the same time. Yeah, but it was so overwhelming that I just couldn't deal with it. And so that's what we do with trauma. We, when it's so overwhelming, we're just like, oh, I'm just gonna shove that down in the closet and never think or speak of it again. But years later, it came up during one of my meditation retreats, and I was like, oh, okay. That memory? Yes. Well, the memory of it being possibly true. Right. So thinking about, oh, what if Jerry is my dad? How am I gonna feel about that? How am I gonna respond? And it wasn't anger, it wasn't resentment, it wasn't rage, it was just like, oh, that's interesting. Like, and it was just like, okay, how can I be with that? And I never again spoke of it. My husband didn't even know this was an option. So when I saw that match, I knew immediately. I was like, Jerry's my dad. Wow. But I didn't no no, right? So I didn't know what his last name was. I just remembered his first name. I called my husband first, and I was like, I think Jerry is my dad, not my dad dad. Yeah. And he's like, um, are you sure? I was like, I don't know, I have to call my brother Bobby.

SPEAKER_01: 5:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 5:38

Called my brother Bobby immediately. Thank God he picks up, like always, no matter what time it is in America, yeah. Always picks up, which is amazing. And I didn't even say hello, I just said Bob, what was Jerry's last name? And he said Bado. And I was like, he's my father. And he was like, I know. And I was like, I know you know, because you told me when I was 18. Yeah. And he was like, I fucking know it, Kate. And I was like, Yeah, I know. And he was like, I was like, Does anybody else know? How'd you know? Like, does daddy know? Like, did you talk to anybody? Like, just investigating, and he was like, Kate, I never said anything to anybody else. He's like, I can't believe I never said anything to mommy. Like, this is he's like, I can't believe she did this. He was like, I don't think daddy knows. He was like, You can't do it over the phone, you have to go over there and fly over.

SPEAKER_01: 6:21

And do you see him? Sorry that he didn't tell anyone because he wanted to protect maybe you. It's he told you with love and he wanted the best for you, and then you'd reacted in a way that was probably not what he wanted. Yeah. So then he thought, oh no crap, I can't, I don't I want to protect you or my sister, like I want to keep you safe. Absolutely, yeah. It was just too much.

SPEAKER_00: 6:41

He saw how overwhelming it was to me at the time. Yeah, and I think, of course, he was like, I well, I I can't open that one just because look at her.

SPEAKER_02: 6:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 6:52

And I truly believe that everything does happen exactly the way it's meant. Like my nervous system could not handle it at 18. And Lord knows what I would have done with that information, like to myself, to my mom, to how I would have reacted. Like I was a very emotionally immature person, and I self-soothed in very unhealthy ways, as you do. Um, but so when I found out, I got confirmation because I had matched with his son. So it was Jerry Bato Jr. Okay. Yeah, and this is all fake names. This is what's going in my second book. Um, so my first book, Trust the Finds, this talks about all the other silent secrets and shame that my family had that I thought were the only secrets, but it obviously got more layered with me. So I find out that the man who raised me is not my biological father at 38. I knew I had to go and tell my father, but nobody wanted me to. So all of my siblings, even my aunts, were like, you can't go tell him. Sorry, how many siblings do you have? I have four six.

SPEAKER_01: 7:58

Well, technically, I have eight half siblings. Okay. How many did you grow up with? I grew up with four. And so that's that's including the brother who was adopted?

SPEAKER_00: 8:09

Yes. So three are my mom and dad's. Well, that's that's what be my question. So I'm an only child technically. Okay. So my mom and biological father only they've only had one child together. So I'm an only child biologically, genetically. Yeah. I grew up with four siblings, but my brother Bobby was adopted, and I'm gonna get into his story. He's technically my cousin. So and then I f I found out this year that my biological father had four kids, but one of them was also he adopted from his wife's first relationship. Yeah. So technically I have eight half siblings, but six are blood. Right. And I'm the only child.

SPEAKER_01: 8:58

And then the two who you grew up with, are they of the same parentage? Are the three? So there's I grew up with four siblings. Yes, yes. So adopted you, and then the remaining two. Three. So there's five of us. Okay. Do they share the same mother and father that you're aware of? Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 9:17

So they did ancestry.com because I was like, guys, can you put in your ancestry.com so I can make sure that like you're my half sibling. Yeah. Because I was like, I still because they were like, look, don't tell daddy until you no no. And I'm like, well, I'm pretty sure genetics doesn't lie. No. But can you just do ancestry? So I have literally, it says you're my half sibling. Because if you're my half sibling, we know we both came out of my mother's vagina. We're all of us. Yeah. We know that we don't share the same father. Yeah. Like if that says so, they did it, and it said, obviously, and they have Eastern European 50% in them. So I'm like, okay, well, this also explains why I love Australians because I'm 40% English. Not Polish. Wow. Um, so that's also kind of funny, like thinking about how I've been telling the whole world or myself, you know, I'm Polish, I'm Polish, I'm Polish, but I'm not at all. Um, that to me was probably the only kind of strange identity shift because to me, like my dad is my dad. Um, but it gets a little like the emotional side is I think about how sad it was for my mom to have lived with that lie to look at me every single day, to look at my father, and like she probably did have more affairs because she was self-sabotaging because she that I believe, like some people might think, although she was, you know, had a lot of narcissistic tendencies, she just didn't care about her. Maybe she forgot about it. And I'm like, yeah, even narcissists still have like pain underneath them. Okay, that it's just not expressed. And so I believe that like she had a lot of shame, a lot of you know, pain underneath her, like looking at me for all those years, knowing that she was lying to me or had this lie. And also, then did she threaten my biological father to never reach out to me? Yeah, because he's a very lovely man, he was an alcoholic. Um, but I've spoken to my half siblings, and they even said, you know, he would have loved to have like like meet you, or like when I was older, because obviously he met me when I was little, because my mom's relationship with that man was going on for years. So and it's funny, in my first book, I literally talk about him and I call him creepy. I said, But looking back, you wrote this book before you. So my first book talks about all the other silent secrets and shame. And so my second book is gonna be about finding this out. So it's that other layer. But in the first book, I literally called Jerry creepy because he gave me a lot of attention. Yeah, you know, and now I'm looking back, I'm like, well, of course he treated me a bit more special. It was his freaking daughter. But you don't know that.

SPEAKER_01: 12:07

I don't know. And that's definitely like predator territory. Exactly. You don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 12:11

But I also believe personally, this is my own belief. Nobody else has to.

SPEAKER_01: 12:17

It's your story, it's your life.

SPEAKER_00: 12:19

But I believe I would have known as a child. I believe blood has a way of knowing viscerally. Okay. You know what the what you can't understand from your brain, your body knows. And I think as a child, I would have known. You I I just I feel like you know these things. But as a child, you don't have the words or the the concepts or the ability to put things together, so I was more confused than anything. It wasn't like a fee, I was never afraid of him or fearful. He wasn't creepy in that sense. It was just he did give me more attention, and he would sing the song, K-Katie, she's a lady. And like it would annoy me, like a dad would annoy you if he's singing you a song about your name, you know. Like these things now. I look back and I was like, Oh, like, of course, you know, he treated me a little bit differently. And I was talking to one of my cousins, and she was like, Oh my god, because she remembers Jerry as well. He would always come to the beach with us. She was like, I think Jerry saved our lives. And I was like, He did. We were both drowning. At least we might have been in like knee water, yeah, like depth. Yeah. And he was like, and she was like, he's the one who saved us when we were drowning. So apparently my biological father saved us from drowning too. But um, yeah, to go back to the first book and the first set of silent secrets in shame was when I was around, I remember my mom growing up having that affair and found that to be a little confusing of like, why are we hanging out at this other guy's house? Like, I know my mom's having that relationship with him. And then that relationship just kind of went away, and then my little sister was bored, and it was like we were one big happy family again. And then when I was around 10, I started to notice there was a lot more fighting going on. My mom would be talking on the phone late at night with a guy. I would, you know, fighting your parents. Parents? So your mom and your dad. Dad. Yeah. So I just noticed there was just a little bit more like elevation with the fighting. And I overheard my dad saying one time, uh, well, why don't you send Bobby down to his real father? And I knew there was something behind that. And I'm a wild investigator. And I was like, what does that mean? Like Bobby has a different dad. And I later found out that the man who my mom is having an affair with was my aunt who got murdered on Mother's Day back in 1982. It was her husband's husband. That was the man who my mom is having the second affair with. But to bring the story back to how it gets more layered and confusing was I found out through finding a death certificate, my aunt's death certificate, that she was murdered on Mother's Day 1982, but that my brother Bobby was her son. So this is my mom's sister. Did you know that your mom had a sister? So my grandmother had nine kids. Everybody said she had nine, but we only counted eight. So again, another secret that we just were expected to carry and not question. And when we did, it was met with like, you don't we like children don't need to know those things. Like this is only adult talk. So we knew that there was nine, but we were always confused because like we would literally sit there and count them and name Aunt Bonnie. Like we would name them off, and we're like, but that's only eight. So we later pieced together that when my because my mom is the second eldest, um, she was one of the older ones. My aunt was only like 21 or 22. She was going to visit her mom, my grandmother, for Mother's Day, and she was at a friend's place, and the friend's brother came in and shot both of them. Oh my god. She got shot like in the head five times, like gunpoint. And that was on Mother's Day, 1982. My mom being the eldest, and my grandmother, I think, was pregnant with her ninth child.

SPEAKER_01: 16:21

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00: 16:22

Um, my mom decided to adopt him because like my grandmother couldn't afford another baby. She was already living on welfare as it was. So my mom, having already had one child, being the eldest and the parentified daughter, she adopted my brother at 18 months old. But they decided they were never gonna tell anybody. But my brother finds out at 14, and this is where I hear a lot of fighting. My brother talking about like, why didn't you ever tell me? And like, so I'm I'm putting all this together, and then my mom actually physically leaves my dad. We were living in New Jersey, she moves all of us, four of us. My older sister stayed in New Jersey because she was going to college. Okay. She moves four of us kids down to West Virginia into a trailer, but this was also another secret. She didn't tell my dad till the night before we were leaving. My dad told me he bumped into my best friend's mom at the grocery store and she was hysterical crying like, how could your mom just leave without ever telling anybody? She never told anybody. Like again, like, how could you just leave a tri-state area with four kids and just never tell anybody?

SPEAKER_01: 17:37

Well what was the reasoning for her saying? Did she tell you why she didn't tell you about it? Obviously, election is.

SPEAKER_00: 17:44

Well, they just, yeah, they just literally was like, well, we were just never gonna tell anybody. There was no reason to talk about it almost like this is just the way it was. It was very much just like, well, that's just the way it is. We just thought that was that was for the best. Yeah, that's it. Like, still to this day, nobody has ever sat us down as a family and actually told us once. When I later questioned like my dad, like, how come he never told us? He was like, Well, we just thought you'd find out anyways. And I'm like, but okay, like he wasn't wrong in his defense, but it would have been a lot easier, it's just the way they dealt with things, right? And so my grandmother, it's that generational trauma. My grandmother had nine kids to three different men, and completely on poverty, like levels, and my mom's dad, so the one she had six or I think only six with, he was an alcoholic, like you know, and I'm not gonna say abusive, but I don't know if he was the nicest person um when he drank, and he drank a lot. So I there's a lot of trauma there, a lot of generational trauma. And you know, when you grow up with alcoholism in your family, it's all about like keeping that secret because there's so much shame on the family. So there's all and then and my my grandmother having nine kids to three different men in like what the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, like that was pretty shameful if you're not married to a man, right? So so much shame, so much silence, so much secrets, like and they would all keep it as loyalty as siblings. So I later found out that my aunts knew that I had a different biological father, and these are aunties who like are my second mom. These are not like long distant relatives who I never talk to. So I called my one aunt, and I was like, So I found this out. She's like, Oh yeah, I knew. And I was like, What do you mean? And she's telling me, like, we're talking about what we had for lunch, yeah. And I was like, Well, first of all, I guess thank you for not lying to me now. Yeah, but like, what? Yeah, yeah. You just didn't think that that was something I should have known. I'm 40 years old, like my mom has been passed away for 13 years. Like, you could have had this conversation, and also the Effect it had on my father. So I flew over to America to tell the man who raised me. And nobody wanted me to have the conversation. I did it on Mother's Day as a full circle moment. And he was like, I'm so relieved because he knew it, but he never had confirmation. Somebody wrote my dad, the man who raised me, a writ a typed up letter saying that I was not his biological father. He questioned my mom multiple times. She would explode, she would leave for a few days. She would say, Who are you gonna believe me or them? She would call him crazy. No, so that's a big mystery. But my dad seems to think it would be my half-brother's ex-wife. But I talked to my half-brother and he was like, I don't have any relationship to her anymore. So I have no clue, but he was like, She was crazy, and I wouldn't doubt it. Um, and it would have had to be somebody close to my mom and my biological father. And my biological father is quite old, so he was 18 years older than my mom. So my half-brother is like 20-something years older. He was like 25 when I was born. Um, so so how old was your mom when you were born? Um 1986, and she was born in 56. So 20. 30. 30. She was 30. Um he would have been 48. Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 21:21

Yeah. And that's not as bad in my head as her being 20 and him being 38. Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 21:28

But looking back, this now, okay. Now the story gets even even more layered. Um, this is where I'm wanting to decode a little bit. So I believe my aunt, who was murdered on Mother's Day in 1982, was only like 21 or 22. Maybe she was 23. Anyways, very young, murdered. I believe she was a lost soul. So when somebody gets murdered at a young age or doesn't want to leave, they are, they feel like their their opportunity of life was taken away. So sometimes they attach themselves to a body. So if we look back at the the events, my mom adopted her son. She named me after her, and then she goes on to have three serious, my mom goes on to have three serious relationships with three men who used to hook up with my her sister. Wow. Or had a relationship with my sister. One being the father of her son. No, so that's he's not even the father of her son. That's so my brother Bobby, yeah, who's adopted, didn't even find out who his real dad was until this year doing Ancestry.com because it wasn't the man she was married to. So many secrets. So many secrets. Again, like it just it is a days of lives like show. So many secrets. So I feel like, you know, the fact like my mom, my biological father first used to um hook up with my aunt who passed away. And she was young, and he was older. So that to me was like, oh, okay. Was he a bit of a pet of a? I mean, maybe she was over 18, but you know, she he was a Stacy T isn't that? Yeah. And so she used to hook he used to hook up with her. And then my mom starts to hook up with him, has me, names me after her, then leaves my father for her sister's widower, breaks out with him. Oh, has a baby with him and gets an abortion.

SPEAKER_01: 23:36

Jesus.

SPEAKER_00: 23:37

And and that's also in my book, Trust of Finds, where she told me that she was pregnant. I again freaked out and I said, I'm gonna hate you, I'm gonna hate the baby, I'm never gonna talk to you or the baby, ever, ever, ever. I hate you, hate you, hate you, as a very, you know, angry 12-year-old girl does. And she ends up having an abortion, and then she tells me she peed on the stick girl. And so um then years later, um, I I thought my mom and dad were getting back together. They were they were looking at houses to maybe, you know, move back together. And then I started notice my mom was talking on the phone with another guy, and I would notice, you know, all these calls. My dad literally asked me, he was like, Kate, what's going on? Like, your mom's not telling me anything. I had to break the news to him that dad, she's seeing somebody else. Like, and I remember being, and I was 17 or 18 years old at the time, being like so pissed off that like I had to be the adult stepping into that relationship. Like, why the hell am I having this conversation with my father? Why are you not having this conversation? Like, grow some balls and actually stop keeping secrets and just live the truth. It's okay that you don't want to be with somebody, it's okay that you want to have other relationships, just stop pretending things that are the way they are that they're not. And so just growing up with that like massive pink elephant in the room, constantly wanting to be like scream, like, can we all just like stop pretending and just be more authentic? But I guess that was their own authenticity, like they didn't know how to be any other way, and um yeah, so just seeing my father having so much heartbreak his whole life, and then so the guy my mom gets in a relationship with, and she's in a relationship with for 10 years, and he used to hook up with my aunt as well. And I'm like, clearly, there is some weird lost soul thing. Like, I believe in some spiritual like thing because how does all of that like happen? Like, you adopt her son, you get in these relationships, serious relationships. You have you get pregnant by two out of three of those men, name one of them after her, and also she knew that she was pregnant with me and my biological father was the dead. I was a surprise. She didn't know if I was a girl or a boy. What if I came out looking like him? Like, what? Yeah, how could you do like I look exactly like her, so nobody ever questioned it.

SPEAKER_01: 26:12

Yeah, I guess.

SPEAKER_00: 26:13

And the weird part is is my the man who raised me, he has blue eyes. I'm the only child to have blue eyes, and for my whole life I was like, there's no way I've got my dad's blue eyes. My biological father has like black brown eyes, and my mom has like green brown. So I don't know where the blue eyes come from, but I was convinced they obviously came from the man who raised me, but that's not even true. Um, so the way she got away with it is because I look like her. Exactly. I don't look like my siblings, I look a little bit like my siblings because they're half of her as well. Yeah, that's right. But it's not a massive distinction. Like I don't have resemblance really too much of my biological father. Like I look at photos now, and my half-brother has has sent me photos of like his sisters who I kind of have some resemblance with. So it's interesting because like, yeah, you are 50% somebody else, but like my dad is my dad, and like that will never change. But I feel so happy that I had that conversation because my courage to speak my truth also helped him release so much being gaslit. Yeah, you know, it and he was wanting to have that conversation with me for so long, but he didn't have the courage to have it. And so, like, I'm just so glad that I went against what everybody wanted me to do, except my I mean, my husband was a hundred percent always supportive, and he said from day dot, he was like, he knows, and he's gonna be relieved. And ever and I would talk to so many people about it, and I would talk to older men at like the gym, like men in like their 50s and stuff who have kids. And I was like, This is what's up. Like, what do you think? He was like, he knows, and I was like, I know he knows, like he's not an idiot, he knew it was going on, and like yeah, you know, as a as a parent, like again, I really feel that like when it's blood, like there's just a knowing, yeah, there's a visceral feeling, knowing I don't know what it is.

SPEAKER_01: 28:19

There's so much evidence as well, like multiple affairs, multiple this, multiple lies, multiple secrets. So he actually questioned all of us, he said. He was like, Kate, I questioned all of you guys. Yeah, a fair though, yeah. And it's so you said before and I um he loved her so much that you want to believe, don't you?

SPEAKER_00: 28:42

Exactly. Right. Yeah, so he just and and it didn't matter to him, right? So for him, it just didn't matter, and it it it was what it was, but he was gonna put it in the will. And like I think about could you imagine if that's how I found out like, hey guys, can you do an ancestry.com test just to find something out? Jesus, yeah, God. So yeah, and now I'm finding out that my one aunt who everybody says so my mom's sister, another one, everybody's saying that her dad is this the one guy who she had seven kids with, or at least we thought, but she's now thinking that it's the other guy my grandmother had the ninth kid with, but everybody's denying it. So she's gonna take an Ante Shigel contest and hopefully find some more truths out. And it's like that generational trauma. It's like the apple never falls too far from the tree. Like we just live what we learn until we unlearn those unhelpful behaviors and patterns. But yeah, lots of silent secrets and shame. And I'm all about like what and what you don't speak, you store. This is my big thing. Like, I saw it in my mom, like carrying secrets, not just like the shame, like that is gonna show up physically, like you are angry, you are resentful, you are spiteful, like the way she would like explode is like, whoa, like you don't get that way when you're telling the truth all the time. And it's gonna show up, you know, also in your body, like with diseases and stuff. Like, do I think it was far-fetched that she got ovarian cancer through all and I wrote about this in my first book. Like, I felt so much shame for saying, like, maybe this is karma, like maybe this is God's way of saying, like, hey, you know, like you not dealing with your stuff, this is how it shows up. It manifests in the body.

SPEAKER_01: 30:45

Do you think that from the sounds of things, all of her sisters had secrets and the grandma had secrets? Yeah, but do you think that they've found that to be a form of connection? That loyalty and that trust, and we're sisters, we're brothers, like this. This is what family does. Doesn't matter what you do, as long as you tell us that you keep it within the family. Yeah, like that's what they believe. Loyalty. Loyalty, that's what they believe love is to be. That's what they believe, like, yeah, is what ties the family together. Secrets. Yeah. It's like a little game.

SPEAKER_00: 31:18

Like a little mob. It is, and it's like my aunts and uncles, like they are all they're still so close to each other. Yeah. And they don't have a lot of other friends. Because no, if they let someone else in, then they will know all the things. And they're always talking to each other on the phone and even about each other, buying each other. Like it is so twistant. But that was their idea and definition of love. And like, who am I to say that that's not love? You know, that's their dysfunctional, you know. I don't want to say dysfunctional because it's what they know and it's what they're used to. And um, and I also question, like, what would my relationship with my mother really be like now? Um, like, would I be able to have these, like the way I've been able, like my dad read my first memoir, and that's got some stuff in there, and you don't want dads reading, right? But he was open enough to read it. And ever since then, I feel like because he's always been a more introvert guy. He's he was literally voted most shy in high school. Like, he's very much like he's not an emotion, like he also has never said I love you, but sometimes he'll say it if I say it, but he's very like growing up with cold Polish parents, it's hard for him to express emotions. But ever since I've been really vulnerable and reaching out to him more and having these really vulnerable, probably uncomfortable conversations with him, he's opened up so much more. Like when I went to go see him in May, I mean, we talked for hours about his relationship with my mom. At one point, he came to me and he was like, Kate, you know what? My parents never said I love you. Never to us as children, never to each other. I never heard those words in my in my house. And he was like, That's probably why I have a hard time saying it to you guys. It's like, oh my god, here's a 73-year-old man telling his 40-year-old daughter, like, I'm so so like he didn't say I'm sorry, but like having this realization of come to Jesus, of like, I never heard it in my home. This is probably why it's hard for me to say it to you guys. But I know he loves me, and he of course says it in other ways, but it's like, and I'm not gonna fault him for not being able to be comfortable enough to say it because in his nervous system it's uncomfortable because it was never said.

SPEAKER_01: 33:33

And I also think um love languages, yeah, like you know, acts of service, yeah, that's right. Yeah, that would be how he would show his love. He's not a um words of affirmation, but it would be acts of service or something like that. Yeah. And you understand you can understand that and you can see the way that they're presenting their love. Yeah. This might not be how you need to receive it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 33:56

But from like what I've really have gained from this is how much fear is behind dysfunction, and it's disguised as compassion. So even my girlfriend of since I've known her since I was five, she's more of like family than friends. When I messaged her, because she knows my dad, she knows about the situation. Everybody, because my dad's such a beautiful man, he's so in love with my mom, and my mom just treated him obviously quite poorly and just disrespectful, and everybody just saw the pain that it did to my dad. So everybody was trying to protect him about like don't say anything. And they were worried as well because his dad had a heart attack at 55, and so he's got high blood pressure, high cholesterol, he doesn't take medication. He lives out in the boonies of West Virginia, he's an hour from the hospital, so I can understand why everybody was scared, but even my girlfriend was like, Katie, in my heart of hearts, I don't think you should tell him. And she at the end of it, she said, you know, biology doesn't make your father. And I was like, that line is literally the excuse of denial. I'm not looking for a second dad. It's not the whole point of having this conversation. It's like this doesn't take away from the truth. Like we are excusing, like the fact that you want to keep it still, again, hidden to protect somebody is dysfunction.

SPEAKER_02: 35:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 35:23

And like I always say emotionally mature people are not afraid of the truth. They're afraid of avoidance. Because they're not afraid of pain. Sorry. Because yeah, okay, the truth definitely hurts sometimes. Like you can get angry, your nervous system will get dysregulated, you might go into fight or flight, you might go into panic or shutdown or even disassociate. Like, there's so many, it's uncomfortable, but you're not afraid of that. You're like, I'm so glad you told me, even though that wasn't comfortable. But somebody who is emotionally immature and dysfunctional, yeah, sure, they're gonna be afraid of the truth. But like, I don't think it's ever okay to keep the truth from anything or anyone. Like, there's no such thing as a white lie. I hate that term. Like, no, like you can talk about things and maybe not with everybody, you don't have to write a book about it and publish it to the world, like I did. But having conversations where you can just be open and vulnerable and listen, and it doesn't have to be dramatic, it doesn't have to be wildly painful and over the top.

SPEAKER_01: 36:29

It can just be like, look, this is what's up, and this is Do you think that he was open to it because you are his daughter, and I can assume that you went in with it with love? Yes. Whereas if maybe one of your your aunties or someone had gone to him with the same information that you took to him, he might not have been as well.

SPEAKER_00: 36:50

No, I think I think he would have been very receptive. I think um I am glad that it actually did come for me, even though I look back and I'm like, oh, why didn't my aunts ever say anything to him? Because that would have been hard for him to one, keep that inside, want knowing he wanted to say something, and also to think, well, maybe I am crazy. You know, that gaslighting feeling that nobody likes. Um and what a relief it was. But I am very grateful that I was the one. But I do believe he would have been receptive because that's just who he is. He was always the calm in our chaos, you know, and he was it again, he might have felt hurt by it, but he's he would have rather known the truth, like anybody does really. Even I believe my mom, like my mom and my, you know, aunts and stuff, I believe they want to know the truth too. But um, they just react in maybe different ways. Um, and yeah, they obviously want to know the truth because they talk about each other's secrets. So it's like, well, clearly you like to know the truth because you talk about each other's secrets.

SPEAKER_01: 37:55

Yeah. A little bit of um like gossip. A little bit of drama. It sounds like a lot of drama. And people, and you'll know this, get addictive. Yes. It's a form of connection, like to go back to.

SPEAKER_00: 38:07

Yes. It's connection, and literally, when you grow up in dysfunction, the only time you got connection was when there was yelling and chaos because your parents didn't know how to be present with you otherwise, because they were living in survival mode. They were just trying to figure it out. They weren't actually able to be there and just play with you with no expectations. So the only form of connection was drama and dramatic things and you know, feeling overwhelmed sensationally. You know, that was their way of like, oh, this is what being alive and being loved is. Well, that's it.

SPEAKER_01: 38:44

When when we experience confront confrontation, conflict, our bodies release adrenaline, and then we get addicted that to that specific form of adrenaline, and the only way that we can then get that release again is through conflict, through confrontation. And most of the time people don't realize that they're addicted to adrenaline, and that's why they repeat these cycles, because even though that adrenaline feels disgusting, it's a high. And then you just want to keep cycling, keep grabbing onto that because that's what you know. 100%. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 39:19

I think this is off the topic, but I think that has probably a bit to do with ADHD as well, because ADHD people tend to sometimes have they're very sensitive and they can have outbursts. And I think it it probably has something to do with that adrenaline sort of rush because a lot they need to have sort of a lot of them stimulation. And um, yeah, so it's been a little bit of a whirlwind, yeah. Um, but 39 now and really feel like honestly, when I first found out it was this immense clarity. Like, one, I'm feel like now it makes so much more sense why I always felt like I had a little bit more. Anger and resentment towards my mom as opposed to my siblings. Not that I was more special, but I felt like, why do I feel so much more anger and resentment? Like I was like a full-on raging bitch at moments where I'm like, they never really reacted that way, and they felt like they were angry at mom, but they never liked the way I, and I was like, and I couldn't put my finger on it. I was like, there's something more. And I was like, maybe because I was her little princess and she treated like I was her favorite, is it something to do with that? But then I was like, no, like obviously there was something we weren't able to be our most authentic self, and I knew that. And so that made a lot of sense. And then I just had this complete clarity of like, this is what I'm here to do. Like I am here to be put into this world to help people speak the truth, find their voice, breathe, and like speak up and speak out, and do it in a I would say soft front and strong back kind of way, like kind but firm, and having real conversations like what you're doing now, like just telling real truths and like letting that connect you instead of disconnect you.

SPEAKER_01: 41:05

Yeah, you're obviously breaking the generational cycles that were from your mom, your grandmother, and your aunties, and then obviously I well, I can only assume your your great-grandmother and great-grandmother, everything would have been shrouded in silence.

SPEAKER_00: 41:20

And yeah, yeah, look at you. Yeah, well done. Yeah, and that's I think that's basically it. Hopefully, that didn't confuse anybody too much. I know there's a lot of different corners to turn.

SPEAKER_01: 41:32

Yeah, but it sounds like even for you, it's all over the place.

SPEAKER_00: 41:37

Yes, yeah, because and what yeah, because it just it sort of goes more and more, and then it makes more sense looking at my own patterns in my like 20s and 30s and like being more attracted to toxic relationships, right? And just having a lot of um symptoms emotionally and physically with anxiety and IBS and all of this stuff showing up in my body. It's like it's almost like when you get a diagnosis or even like a brain scan, and they find a tumor, and like it as much as it it's you're like, oh, that's pretty shitty. Yeah, but it just makes so much more sense of like why you've had these symptoms and why you reacted the way you were. Why was I so angry? Like, I literally only remember feeling angry when I was little. Yeah. And I was a like a spoiled, they literally like some family members are like, Katie, I don't know how you're a good human, you were a spoiled, rotten little brat. Oh wow, yes, and I'm like, so when people have kids who are a little bit maybe not so nice, I'm like, don't worry.

SPEAKER_01: 42:35

Yeah, they've got time to mature that society will knock everything out of you and rebuild you to be the person that you need to be.

SPEAKER_00: 42:44

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, but I mean, I was, you know, I was also a very good student, hyper-independent and all that stuff. But yeah, I just always remember having a lot of anger and a lot of rage, and even when my mom was sick with cancer and going through it, I just remembering like, why can't I let this go? Like, she's dying, Katie. She's looking at her, like, just just let like just forgive. And like at the time I didn't understand what forgiveness was. Like, I thought it was about forgiving the other person, but now I'm doing all this work, I'm like, oh no, forgiveness is really about forgiving myself first. Because you don't have to forgive anybody else, they're just being who they are. You are just upset because of the way you reacted or didn't react to the situation. And um, yeah, and even look backing back upon like I like most girls, I was sexually molested when I was little too, but kept that inside because don't talk about it. And I didn't remember that memory until I mean I remembered it, but again, I didn't talk about it or think about it until the me too thing came out. And it was like, oh, yeah, me too. And now it was like, and I didn't feel safe enough to talk to anybody about it because one, I didn't think anybody would believe me, two, I thought I would get blamed for it, or three, people would just deny it. And that's also why I didn't even go to my mom's sisters when I first found out about this um finding revelation about my biological father, because I actually thought that they would deny my reality, be like, oh, that's not true. And so I didn't even talk to or think to talk to them until months later. And then when I did, I was like, shit, I should have called you guys first. Yeah. You would have spared me a lot of, like, I was going in, I like because I knew what I wanted to do, but having all of your family, like lit and even somebody who's known you since you were five, literally say, I don't think you should do this, when everything inside of you is saying, You need to do this. I there were points where I was like really questioning myself, like really overwhelmed, like I like, you know, I I had to go see a therapist, and then the therapist even confused me more, and I left and I was like, I don't know what to do. Like, and then finally I was just like, I did ayahuasca, you know, and I was just like, no, Katie, you know what is best for you, listen to your body, like, and the only person this concerns is you and your father. The other people who it concerns aren't alive, and everybody else can go eat shit, like it doesn't concern them. Yeah, um, and I knew that like my intention was love, was presence and authenticity of like I want this to connect us more, and it did with me and my dad. So I'm so glad I listened to myself.

SPEAKER_01: 45:37

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, amazing. Well, thank you so much for sharing days of your life with my listeners. Um, I always love to finish the episodes with some advice that you would like to give to either your younger self or someone going through a similar situation, or in this instance, um, maybe someone who's keeping a secret. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 46:00

Well, it's very cheesy, but the truth will always, always set you free. Like, yeah, have the uncomfortable conversations. And I always tell my clients if it's really uncomfortable, like something you want to talk about, um, or maybe it is that secret you actually want to share, like write it down. And it's okay if you even look off the paper as you are talking it to the other person. Like, be okay with being really shitty at having conversations for a while until you start to gain more confidence and emotional awareness and literacy and language. But uncomfortable conversations is legit the only way I have grown emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually. Like getting uncomfortable with those situations is the way. And like, never keep secrets. I'm sorry. There's no judgment here, but it it's not only going to affect you, but it will affect the other people around you because what we don't say also has an energy to it. And so, yeah, I would highly recommend having that uncomfortable conversation and to just be okay with not being amazing at it and just to keep going.

SPEAKER_01: 47:13

And what if the other person who you're sharing your truth with reacts badly and they, whether it's from having an affair or something like that, the fear of losing them? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 47:27

Well, so that goes back to, you know, your own personal development of do you really want to be with people? It doesn't mean that you should stay in a relationship if maybe, you know, it's just not working out, but do you want to have a relationship with somebody who is not able to have healthy conflict, healthy debate, healthy resolution? Because just because there's a rupture doesn't mean you can't repair. And I think statistically, couples who have like there is a guy on Instagram, Jimmy, on relationships, he had an affair with his wife. He is now like an amazing psychologist who, you know, teaches and trains people how to have these intellectual conversations with their partners. And he has an amazing relationship with his wife. Now they have kids. Like the statistics on people who have affairs and come back together healthily is actually high because it actually breaks a part of their relationship open of, okay, now we can be more vulnerable. Now we can be more honest. I'm not saying every relationship, but just because there's been infidelity doesn't mean you can't have a stronger bond after. Like it's again this mindset that this is the end and that we can't repair after rupture. And also that you're responsible for somebody else's reaction. This is what emotional boundaries are about. Like not taking on somebody else's pain or rage or response as something you did. It's like taking just full accountability and full responsibility for what you do, how you show up. And the more you embrace that in a very more emotionally aware, mature way, the more confident you are, the more you grow. But it doesn't happen overnight, and it doesn't happen by being comfortable, that's for sure. Yeah, so true. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for having me on. Your story, amazing. Thank you.