Alethia's Story

Harmful Content Warning: This episode contains raw language including racial slurs, as well as discussions of domestic violence and systemic trauma.

Alethia joins me to talk about a childhood defined by internal racism and the messy reality of growing up in a toxic home. We dive into the moment her world shifted when a DNA test completely dismantled her family’s origin story, replacing it with a hidden history she never saw coming. It’s an honest, sometimes uncomfortable look at the shame that follows a DNA surprise and the heavy emotional cost of carrying secrets you didn't even know existed.

Resources Mentioned:

Right to Know

DNAngels and Search Angels

One Drop: My Father's Hidden Life - A Story of Race and Family Secrets by Bliss Broyard

Finding Me: A Memoir by Viola Davis

Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey

The Color of Water by James McBride

I Take My Coffee Black by Tyler Merritt

Reflections: A Window Into My Soul by Alethia Stern

NPE Stories Patreon

NPE Stories facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/NPEstories

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

And so I was overwhelmed. I'm like, I don't know anything about DNA, genealogy, cinema organs. I don't know what that stuff means. That's not my area of expertise. It's not my wheelhouse.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Hello, you are listening to NPE Stories. This is a podcast where NPEs can share their story. I am your host, Lily, and I found out I was an NPE through an ancestry DNA test that changed my life forever. NPE is a term that stands for not parent expected or non-paternal event. This means that one or more of our parents are not who we believe them to be. NPE Stories is a podcast where NPEs can share their story of what their original family was like, how they found out they were an NPE, and what their journey has been like since the day they found out. Welcome to episode 240. Today I'm speaking with Alethea. Hi Alethea.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Hi, Lily. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 1:06

I'm good. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 1:08

A little bit nervous, but also excited at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Oh, absolutely I'm right there with you. I still get nervous when I have to share my story and to go on a podcast and share it. And I just want you to know, listeners, especially the new NPEs, appreciate this so much. So thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be a guest on your podcast and to share my story. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

And Alethea, am I pronouncing that right? Is it Alethea? Four syllables?

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Yes, it's not a common name, actually. Um, I haven't met a lot of people that share my name. In fact, I've only met one other person in my life that had the same name as I did. And hers was spelled a little bit differently. But it's a Greek word that means truth or truthful. And the irony in naming me Alethia is that I grew up in a family shrouded in secrecies and lies. And so when I share uh my story, some of those secrets and lies will be revealed. And so I shared this once with someone, uh, the origins of my name and what it meant. And I said, How ironic is that? And they suggested to me that maybe they name me Alethe because they uh wish they could be truthful.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

So it's kind of epic, I guess. Yeah, really, it is. And it and it's a beautiful name. So thank you for sharing that with me. Thank you. Let's find out about your family of origin. So, who is in your raising family?

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Well, first, I'm and I have to start with my mother. Uh, she was born on the East Coast, and as an infant, she was in foster care and later adopted. So I guess that would make mean collateral damage. And she was actually adopted by her great aunt's neighbor. So her biological family was aware of who had custody of her and um of her existence. And for a while, her adoptive mother was corresponding with his great aunt and apprising her of my mother's development and progress and lack thereof. For how long this went on, I don't know. But it was kind of like an open adoption, but it was unheard of back then. And eventually her adoptive family relocated to the Midwest. And my mother deeply resented being adopted. She didn't talk about her adoptive family very much. And they were an older couple, and unfortunately, they passed away before before I was born. So I never had a chance to meet them. I don't know whether or not they were good people or not. And because of my mother's adoption, I grew up my entire life without any grandparents, aunts, uncles, or cousins on my maternal side, as well as my paternal side. So there were zero extended family members. There were no family get togethers for the holidays, no shared vacations, no reunions, uh none of that stuff. So it's kind of like being in complete social isolization. And for the bulk of my life, um, I always believed I was my mother's second child in a sib ship of six. But until recently, I want to say within the last four years, I learned uh that I had another older half sibling I knew nothing about. And it was right after the very first Untangling Our Roots conference in Louisville. I don't know if you went to that uh conference.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Oh, yeah, I did.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

I went and while I was away, I had uh placed a hold on my mail. And when I returned, uh collected the mail that I had hailed. And in that mailing was a letter from my mother's biological sister. And so she disclosed in this letter information about this older half sibling I knew nothing about. So presumably I have two older half siblings from my mother's first marriage, one I was raised with, and one I was not raised with that I didn't know anything about. Then there's me, and then I have four younger half siblings from my mother's second marriage, although one passed away as an infant, and I was so young myself that I don't um recall them. So I have no full siblings. I want to say around the age of 10, my mother's second husband allegedly adopted me in a stepparent adoption. And I say allegedly because uh when I became an adult, I sent away for my birth certificate and uh received a copy of it, but it was not amended and it didn't include his name on the birth certificate. And it was kind of inconsequential for me because I was only 10 and I didn't know really what step parent adoption meant. Um, the only thing that was slightly different for me was that I was able to write my name on his last name on my homework assignments and classroom assignments at school. But as far as it being an actual le legal proceeding, I don't know necessarily know if that was true. Because like I said, the the copy that I received was not amended with his name on it. So maybe it was just some sort of formality. And uh my mother's second husband wasn't, I wouldn't consider him a role model or father figure for me. Uh there was a lot of domestic violence in the home when I was coming up. Uh and part of that was because he was a philander and there was a lot of infidelity in the marriage. And I'm a summer baby, and I remember turning five, and we spent the day at the beach. And when you're a kid and you're having fun in the sun and the sand and the playground, you're not paying attention to what the adults are doing. So all the while we were at this public beach, my mother was allegedly observing him solicit other women for their phone numbers and her presence. And so the plan was when we got home to cut my cake and sing happy birthday. And I just remember as soon as we arrived in the privacy of our home, all hell broke loose. And my birthday being ruined at that point. And I think that's when the bitterness and resentment towards him started to creep in. He also had an addiction to pornography. And I had a younger half-sibling that was born with some congenital anomalies. And back then they didn't have all these outpatient procedures that they have today. So my mother would be picked up by a driver and taken to the children's hospital, which was on the other side of the state. And she would be gone for probably like one or two weeks at a time, usually during the spring or summer. And she would leave us home in this custody and care while she was away, uh, the older half sibling that I was raised with. And I just remember us banging on the door, trying to get in to use the bathroom or get something cold to drink or a snack or, you know, get out of the hot sun and get some shade. And he would just refuse to answer the door to let us in. So we would be relegated to going to one of the adjacent neighbors' houses to see if they would offer us some assistance. And of course, we told our mother, and she didn't quite believe us until she uncovered some of the evidence herself. So for that reason, and some others, he just wasn't the role model or father figure for me. I grew up in a domestic violence home. And I recall as a young girl being aroused out of my sleep at the wee hours of like 12 or 1 a.m. to the sounds of dishes smashing against the kitchen walls and screaming and shouting and cursing and crying. And whenever these fights would occur, I would get all these somatic symptoms. And I didn't know what they were back then, but I'm pretty sure they were panic attacks. The palms of my hands would get all sweaty, my heart would start racing really fast, and I'd start um trembling like uncontrollably. And would get this lump in my throat. It almost felt like it was gonna suffocate me or choke me to death. And it was just this overwhelming feeling of guilt. And I was feeling guilty for something that I had absolutely no control over. So I would crawl underneath the bed or run and hide in this in the closet. And those are my safe spaces. And this like went on for years. So I this was the environment that I grew up in.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

I must have been so scary as a little girl.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Yeah, and you know, who do you tell? You don't have when you don't have any extended family members.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Exactly. Was it all your all of the siblings living together in the same house?

SPEAKER_01 10:25

I hadn't the the older half sibling that I just like I said, about four years ago, I just found out about. Oh, yeah. They there were there was no mention of that sibling. Um there were no pictures. Wow. My mother obviously lost custody of him, uh, which was probably justified. But when I found out, Lily, I was angry because I felt like uh they were spared the maternal angst that I had to deal with, but they also had an opportunity I didn't have. They were raised by their biological father, the biological father's extended family, and I believe a stepmom and a couple half siblings. So as soon as I found that out, I was kind of like angry that they had an opportunity I didn't have, and I didn't know about their existence, and just seemed like they were spared from the trauma and drama that I had to deal with coming up. And I actually have no full siblings. So um, this half sibling is a full sibling to my other older half sibling, and then there's me, and then my four other half siblings are all full siblings. So I feel like I was like an island in my own.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Yeah. Did you have any signs that you were an NPE when you were a child?

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Um unlike many of your other guests, I pretty much known at a very early age, as soon as I could access a mirror and examine my own reflection, I noticed that I had features that were different than everyone else. I had a tan complexion and an afro, and no one else had those features but me. And when I entered grade school, many of my peers made it inherently obvious that I was different as well. And they used to tease me and taunt me on the playground and in the classroom, they would call me a nigger. And I absolutely hated that word because no one else was being called uh that name but me. And some of these kids were sadistic, Lily. And I noticed that if I showed any type of emotion, if I started to cry or made an attempt to tell an adult, it would just antagonize them even more. So I had to learn to be stoic and put on a poker face and pretend that it didn't bother me, all the while it was eroding away at my self-esteem and making me self-conscious about my appearance. And the boys were the absolute worst because they would uh try to spit on me. Oh and sometimes uh they would or they would shoot spitwides at me. And I don't know if you're familiar with those.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Yes, are they like rolled up paper that they would put in their mouth?

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Yeah, they would get uh drinking straws from the cafeteria, and um sometimes if they were forgot their straw or for some strange reason the cafeteria was out of drinking straws, they would take an ink pen and remove the ink cartridge and use the outer shell casing. And they would take these tiny um bits of piece of paper and they would ball them up and put them inside their mouth and get them wet with their saliva, and then they would sit behind me in the back of the class and shoot these projectiles at me and hit me in the back of my neck and in my afro. It was just so disgusting.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

That's terrible.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

So this was my uh school environment, and every day I I was accustomed to I knew someone was gonna either call me a nigger or I was probably gonna be spit on. But what I didn't anticipate was one of my half siblings calling me a nigger. Really? Yeah, and I I compartmentalize that memory in my brain, and I think that hurt me the most because I wasn't expecting that at home. And of course, I told my mother, and she told her never to say that to me again, but there was no context as to why she shouldn't say that to me. And it just put me in this awkward and uncomfortable position. Because on the one hand, it wasn't okay for my half sibling to say this name to me, but my mother's second husband used that word freely when he would vent to her about different encounters on his job. And my mother never once corrected him. She never said, Hey, don't say that word.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

So just yeah, it put me in this awkward and uncomfortable position. And for those people who haven't had the lived experience of racial trauma, it's a little bit different when you're dealing with external racism. Usually, but not always, usually you have some internal supports to help you navigate that landscape. But when you're dealing with it both internally and externally, it's a whole different ball game. I almost want to antiquate it to being involuntarily placed on a team and simultaneously having to play offense and defense. How do you do that?

SPEAKER_00 15:41

Yeah. You don't have to answer this, but is your stepdad that you were raised with it is he white? Does he look white?

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Yes, he was Caucasian. Um, he's the father of my four younger siblings.

unknown 15:56

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

And so for the most part, my childhood was pretty miserable. I came from this toxic home environment with domestic violence, poverty, uh, abuse, and internal racism. And then I would go to my school environment, and it would be just as toxic with the racism and discrimination. And I just remember being like six, seven years old. I just wanted out. And so I remember sitting on the edge of my bed with my hands folded and praying to God, just please take me away from here. I don't want to be here anymore. These people hate me. Can you imagine being that young and want not wanting to live? It's like rock bottom. Your childhood years should be carefree and fun, and mine was just these two toxic cesspools of negativity.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

It's heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

And so, of course, my prayers weren't answered, and I had to get creative and use my imagination. So one day, Lily, I made up this little white lie, and I told my mother that my biological dad had come to school. And he was gonna be my superhero and rescue me. And he had come during recess, and so I was gonna have to live in her home anymore or attend that school because he was taking me away and I was gonna go live with him. I don't think my mother quite bought my story, but nevertheless, she showed up to school the very next day, and she stood by me the entire time I was on the playground. And of course, none of the kids teased or taunted me at that point because I was with an adult the entire time. But we both stood around waiting for this man that we knew was not going to show up. And of course, when he didn't, I blamed her. In so many words, I told her that she had ruined it for me, that she had foiled the plan, and that he saw her, and now he wasn't coming to get me. And in a way, I think that's how I um coped with the circumstances I was born into. But it was also like a covert measure of making an inquiry as to where my dad was and why he wasn't in the picture. And of course, my mother wasn't forthcoming with anything. She was silent as a church mouse.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

So you hadn't actually met your biological father when you were a child?

SPEAKER_01 18:32

No. And here's where my story gets even worse. I think this is probably the hardest part of my story. The subject matter didn't come up again until I want to say about seven or eight years later. And by this time, I'm in my final year of middle school at the beginning of eighth grade. And we had relocated at that point, and I was starting a new school. And the home that we were renting was within walking distance of the school. And so I walked to and from school every day. And on the way home, there was a couple of girls that started harassing me. Nothing physical, just verbal threats and taunts, something that I had already been used to. And so I ignored them. Sometimes I would cross to the other side of the street if traffic allowed, or if I was far enough ahead of them, I would pick up the pace and start walking faster. So I would be out of their line of sight. But this went on for like months and it was getting taxing on me. So one evening at the dining room table, I mentioned it to my mother about these two girls harassing me. And instead of her contacting the guidance counselor or notifying the principal of what was transpiring, she thought it would be best to take matters into her own hands and to provide me with an escort home from school. And it'd be one thing if your parent drove a Cadillac Escalade, Yukon Denali, a Hummer, Mercedes, Range Rover, Alexis, BMW, a high-end vehicle. But my mother didn't drive. And no middle schooler that I know of wants to be walked home from school by their parent, right? That's just mortifying because in the middle school, you're supposed to be on the pinnacle of transitioning into adulthood and learning to be more independent. Nevertheless, she shows up to school the very next day and is standing outside the double doors waiting for me. And the way the dismissal was set up, busers had to uh exit out of the front doors, and walkers had to depart from the rear. And they knew I was a walker, so there was no way I was gonna escape out the front doors. So I'm inside the building pacing back and forth, trying to figure out how I'm gonna avert this hall of shame and then spare spare myself from this embarrassment, right? And so eventually I let some of the crowd disperse and I bolted out the back door bypassing her as if she weren't even there. And here go a couple of my peers. Is that your mother? Is that your mother? And I'm just completely ignoring them. And I'm picking up the pace of walking faster and faster. Pretty soon I was like dust in the wind. She couldn't see me, I couldn't see her. And by the time I got to the house, I'm standing at the front door. And obviously, I don't have a key to let myself in. So I'm lingering on the front porch, and it seemed like it took her for hours to get there. So she finally makes her way up to the front steps, unlocks the door, and I go to bolt upstairs to like decompress. And she yanks me back down by my arm and tells me I'm not going anywhere. That it's time for her to have a heart to heart conversation. Conversation with me, and she commands me to sit down at the dining room table. So then I sit down, I'm like a little brother. Here we go. Amateur torture hour, right? And then she proceeds to uh unpack the mother load on me and tells me that the only reason that I existed was a result of a sexual assault and that she had given up friends because of me. Can you imagine that being saddled with that massive guilt trip at such a young age?

SPEAKER_00 22:36

Yeah. How did you feel at the when hearing this?

SPEAKER_01 22:40

I sat there stunned at first, and it felt like I was literally in a straitjacket, like I couldn't move my arms. And then this tornado of emotions was spinning inside my head. And I had this aha moment. I was like, aha. So this is why I've been treated so badly all these years. I'm an abomination. I'm ill-conceived. I'm not supposed to be here. And I think in that particular instance, as when I became this turtle that retracted inside its shell, whenever I would get around people, whether it was large crowds or intimate settings, I became extremely nervous and anxious. Especially if the subject of family was brought up. I would be thinking in my head, please don't ask me, please don't ask me. Because I didn't want to explain my existence or unpack that trauma that I had put in that suitcase. And conversely, I wouldn't ask people about their families either. And I think sometimes when you don't um seem like you're interested in other people and their families, they feel that you have in a disinterested in them, or they might perceive you as being someone who is self-centered or conceited. But in reality, for me, it was like this uh defense mechanism, I believe. And also when I would, whenever I would um strike up a friendship with someone and I got close to them, and their family seemed to be quote unquote normal, I would get extremely envious. Not to the point where uh I would try to sabotage them or um I would try to get some kind of revenge against them. But it was this feeling of deep sadness and um debilitating depression because I would do a side-by-side comparison of what they had versus what I had. In order to avert those feelings, I would just disengage from them altogether. So for the bulk of my life, I have had fragmented relationships with other people because I had very little attachment to my own biological family. And being saddled with this massive guilt trip, the psychological damage that that caused me far exceeded any of the physical abuse that I endured.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Was that the only time you really talked about it? Or then did you guys continue to because I'm just hearing you and how traumatic that was to find that out. And I'm just wondering if at that time you got some form of support in your life at that time, or like a talk therapy?

SPEAKER_01 25:38

I I sat there in that chair, and like I said, that tornado of emotions was just spinning in my head. And I started getting angry, and the palms of my hands started sweating, and then my fist balled up, and my heart was literally beating so fast, Lily, that it felt like the floorboard underneath me was shaking because I was so angry, and unlike my mother, who resented being adopted, I wished at that moment I had been. And then I started to cry, and the tears just started cascading down my face, and then I started that you know, that hyper-ventilating type of cry, like like, you know, I just couldn't catch my breath. And that lump spontaneously formed in my throat again, and it felt like it was smothering me, like I was literally being asphyxiated, like my airway was being constricted. That was that guilt again, that massive guilt trip just laid on me. And it took me a long time. Um, because when you're living in that moment, you're not thinking about the long-term effects or the impact it'll have on you in the future. You're just living in that moment. And it took me well away into my adulthood to come up with this realization. When I was a little girl, whenever I would cry, uh, my mother was that type of mother who uh frowned upon crying. She saw it as a sign of weakness. I was around my mother and I started to cry if something hurt my feelings or made me feel sad or disappointed me. She would have these two euphemisms she would say to me in this angry voice. It would be like, shut up, or I'll give you something to cry about. Or she would say, crying will get you nowhere. And I don't know if that's something that her adoptive mother said to her. I don't know. But in this particular instance, she didn't say those euphemisms to me. How gaslighting and narcissistic is that? As a child, I wasn't able to show my or express my emotions or feelings for something that made me feel sad as a child. But as an adult, if I if there was something that hurt your feelings and made you sad, I could express those emotions on your behalf. So in that particular instance, I wanted to get the hell away from her as far as I possibly could. I no longer wanted to be in her presence because she was a source of pain and discomfort for me. So eventually I wound up running away from home, Lily. And I had been gone for six months. I was on the lamb. And when you're a teenager and you run away, there's always this uh misperception that teenage runaways are juvenile delinquents, they don't want to follow the rules, they don't want to attend school. And the authorities rarely investigate teenage runaways. They don't really deep dive into why they run away from home most of the time. But eventually I was taken into custody by a CPS worker and the police. And I wasn't forthcoming with them about the abuse that I endured as a child because number one, I had been conditioned to be silent. And number two, who wants to unpack that shame, that embarrassment, that guilt? So I was taken back to my mother in her new home, where I endured another year of physical and psychological abuse before I ran away again and became estranged to this family that I was born into. So, no, to answer your question, I did not get any immediate therapy after the fact.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

How old were you when you finally moved out and became estranged from your mom?

SPEAKER_01 29:48

I want to say at the age of 16.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

Yep. Because the first time I ran away um was like two weeks before my 16th birthday. Oh, so no, 17. I was 17 years old.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

Who took care of you?

SPEAKER_01 30:05

I couch surfed, as they say. I spent time with my best friend, and I had a boyfriend who was much older than me, and that's a whole different story that I don't even want to go into. Right. Um so yeah, that was my youth. Fast forward to the pandemic. Uh, and I'm unlike many of your other guests who, you know, knew about their, didn't know about their NPE status, I kind of, like I said, knew pretty much most of my life. But during the pandemic, I had some free time on my hands. So I did a Google search looking for some type of agency or organization that deals with people like me, people who have uh fragmented relationships and missing identity. And that Google search led me to write to know. And so I reached out to them the old-fashioned way through a handwritten letter. And this was during the pandemic, so the mail was kind of wanky back then. And for some reason, the letter got returned to me. And so I was persistent and I double-checked to make sure I had the address spelled correctly and got another stamp and an envelope and resubmitted my letter. And about a week later, I heard from one of their original co-founders, Alicia. And we spoke over the phone and I shared a little bit with her about my story. And she connected me to a mentor, and they both were encouraged me to get a DNA test done. And I was reluctant, I was hesitant based on what I thought I already knew. And then I started fishing for excuses, right? So I was like, oh, they cost too much. But they both reassured me that they go on sale for like every holiday. Even a holiday that's not significant. So, um, or well, some people might not think it's significant, but it was St. Patrick's Day. And so I got this St. Patrick's Day discount, and the test kit arrived. I probably sat on it for two weeks before I submitted my sample. And several weeks later, the results came back. And I had to laugh, Lily, because turns out I'm 5% Irish. So I have a little Irish in me. But I was overwhelmed. All of a sudden, you know, I went from having zero cousins, right? Because I grew up without an extended family, to now having thousands. And so I was overwhelmed. I'm like, you know, I don't know anything about DNA, genealogy, Cinnamorgans. I don't know what that stuff means. That's not my area of expertise. It's not my wheelhouse. And so I needed some assistance to help me decipher all this new information I had at my disposal. I mean, second cousin once removed, what does that mean? I only have a first cousin. So I was searching to see if there was some organization that could help me. And I didn't realize that there's two separate nonprofits: there's DNA angels and search angels. So if you're not paying attention like I was, I just thought it was one agency, but it's two separate nonprofits. So search angels agreed to take my case, not DNA angels. And I shared with this woman who actually was born and raised in my home state. So I'm like, all right, you know, the stars are lining, you know, this is a good sign about my tumultuous relationship with my mother, and that I had zero interest in finding out anything about my maternal side. I wanted to primarily focus on my paternal ancestors. And this woman knew her stuff because she had a PhD in molecular biology. So I was confident that she would be able to help me unravel the mystery of my identity, right? And so I allowed her to have access to my account and she could do whatever she wanted. And so I waited for her to um start the process of investigating. And if you're like me, I'm hoping that maybe I have a celebrity in the family or, you know, someone that is highly educated, successful, on a business or property. And just right off the gate, it was all this negative stuff. It was just trauma after trauma after trauma. And I at one point told her, I don't know if I can go any further with this because it's just bringing me down. It's not helping me. And if you're fortunate enough to live in a community that teaches about black history or, you know, school that um teaches black history, it's pretty much a generic overview. You learn about prominent figures like Dr. Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, maybe Harriet Tubman, Sir Journey Truth, and Frederick Douglass or Malcolm X, and that's pretty much it. But when you learn something specific about one of your own ancestors, it becomes more palpable, more visceral. And so I learned that one of my ancestors was sold at a slave auction in South Carolina and was forced to walk from South Carolina to Mississippi. They didn't have Nikes back then. And so she was separated from her sibling and forced to go into servitude to some stranger who she never met, uprooted from her home state, having to go to Mississippi in shackles and chains, and then forced to help someone live their American dream. And what did she get in return for her free labor? Scrap pieces of food and substandard housing and noncompliance results in physical beatings and torture, among other things. So when we learn about slavery in textbooks, they don't give any emotion, they don't attach any emotion to it. But this is how I felt when I heard about this. And there were some other things that was just, oh my, I couldn't believe. But eventually she identified a man who she believed to be my paternal grandfather. And of course, he passed away in the early 2000s, so there was no chance of ever meeting him. And his wife, whom he was married to at the time, um, passed away the year that I was born. And things just weren't quite adding up. And so she had reached a point where she hit a roadblock and told me that my case was too complicated. Story of my life, right? And that she couldn't go any further. So, so much for my peace of mind and clarity. It was like deflating the air out of a balloon. It was like, you know, I had finally had gotten some hope up where I would have at least a name and maybe a picture. I set the bar low. I wasn't expecting to meet anyone based on what I had been told. I just wanted a name and a photo. That's all. Because all those developmental milestones have passed. There were no daddy-daughter dances for me, uh, no dad how to teach me how to change a flat tire or help me with minor home repairs or give me advice or walk me down the aisle. All those missed birthdays, all those missed Christmases. I don't care how old you are, you you can't make up for that amount of loss. I just wanted a name and a photo. And she couldn't help me. And it wasn't her fault. I mean, I just didn't have enough uh close matches on my paternal side. And so she was about to put my uh case in the my file in the cold case pile. And I conceded. I'm like, okay, what the heck? Find out whatever you can about my maternal side. Not really being interested, but since she was available, maybe she could help me. And I explained to her all the while that I was coming up, my mother um professed to being half Native American. Call it hindsight, call it intuition. I wasn't 100% convinced of my mother's Native American ancestry. And I remember one of my half-siblings trying to convince me by pointing out her physical features and her long hair, but I just wasn't 100% convinced. So when I got older, I asked my mother the name of the specific tribe that she had belonged to. And she told me, and I compartmentalized that in my brain. And I want to say about five or six years prior to getting this DNA test done, I reached out to this specific tribe and made an inquiry about tribal membership. Because if these are my people, you know, I want to belong. And so, of course, they sent me application and I, you know, look at it, and they, it's not just not cut and dry. You don't fill it out, you turn it into the tribe, and you're inducted into the tribe. It doesn't work like that. They wanted specific information. They wanted names, addresses, telephone numbers, birth certificates, baptismal records, uh, marriage license, divorce decree, yada, yada, yaddy, the whole nine yards. And I didn't have any of that information. All I had was hearsay and word of mouth. So I tabled that application, and in the meantime, I sent away for copies of my mother's birth certificates, her original birth certificate and the amended one with her adoptive family. And I received a copy of both, and neither her birth parents nor her adoptive parents identified themselves as being Native American. And when I got my ancestry results back, there was zero indigenous DNA. And so I shared that with her, the search angel, and she, you know, reassured me that sometimes people obscure their identity for certain reasons and that she would investigate and get back with me. So I waited for her to do her research. And one day I'm sitting at the dining room table, sipping a cup of coffee, and I'm on my laptop, and I get this email from her with an attachment. So I click on the link, and Lily, I about fell out of my chair from coughing and choking on my coffee. She had sent me a picture of my great great great maternal grandfather. And it turns out he was an African-American slave from Louisiana. Can you imagine that? Oh wow. I was so like, it was like a slap in the face. Literally. I'm like unbelievable. I was so angry. And I actually confronted my mother's biological sister. I had been corresponding with her through the mail, and I sent her a letter and asked her about this indigenous lie, the Bretendians, as they call them, people that pretend to be Native American and they're not. And her response was the area that they grew up in, which was the East Coast. You know, a lot of people, when they think about racism in America, they automatically shine the spotlight onto the South because that's the Hollywood narrative that's displayed. 99.9% of movies made about racism in America is something that happened in the South. So she said that the area that they lived in on the East Coast was more acceptable to be Native American and that they were being bullied and ridiculed in school. I'm like, wow. I didn't have that option. So that's that generational trauma that just impacts the next generation and the generation after that. And for me personally, I'm I'm ashamed and embarrassed by these ancestors. I don't have a lot of pride in them. I think I would have had more pride in them had they stood up for themselves and identified who they actually were.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

And that was my DNA surprise. So have you ever identified any members on your paternal side that you've been able to connect with if you wanted to?

SPEAKER_01 42:55

I I don't have um I don't have very many first cousins. I reached out to to someone on the lower ring, the bottom of it. And they were skeptical about me and wanted to do their own research, and I wasn't really comfortable with it because I don't know them. They don't know me. And I've I've told I have to have radical acceptance. So right now I'm in my radical acceptance mode. I probably won't ever know, simply because I don't have enough um close first matches.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

Yeah. Oh. So you you have a kind of a you've had this DNA surprise on both sides. Your your ethnicity on your maternal side as well.

SPEAKER_01 43:52

Yeah, that was and the interesting thing about that is like the signs are all around us, Lily. We just don't really know. Until we start get that shovel and start digging that dirt and digging that dirt. And so when I was younger in my early 20s, I went to the public library and I checked out this book. And I thought it was interesting. It was called The One Drop Rule. And it was about this man named Anatole Boyard. I hope I'm saying his name correctly. It's a French name. But anyway, he had disinherited himself from his family. They were African Americans from Louisiana. And he had disinherited himself because he wanted to pursue this prestigious career. And so he worked for the New York Times. And he was uh he did editorials for books, and so he published articles. And most people, the majority of people that worked with him professionally, had no idea about his racial background. And I thought to myself back then, I was like, huh, how bizarre, how weird, having no idea that his story was eerily similar to my own ancestors.

SPEAKER_00 45:05

Was just watching something last night about when people form these family trees. All it takes is one person to change a piece of information about themselves, or I guess we could use the word lie. All it takes is one person in the family tree to lie, and that just keeps going down and down and down the family tree. And if multiple people lie, you is your family tree even accurate at all? Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 45:31

Yeah, but DNA, like they say, DNA doesn't lie. But people do, people do, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

Yeah, the old school family trees really don't work now that we have DNA testing. So how how do you feel now about what about all the information you've gathered the last couple years? It sounds like you're you're saying radical acceptance. How do you how does that feel inside? Does that feel okay, peaceful to you? How does that feel?

SPEAKER_01 45:59

Well, I I tell you, it's it's it's like um an unsolved mystery. And sometimes, you know, I will go um bouts with just being okay with it, and then I'm, you know, all of a sudden I flip the script and I'm obsessed with it. And I'm, you know, logging on to the um ancestry account multiple times a day, trying to just see if I have any close matches, and then I'll just back off for a while and say, you know, stop obsessing over it if it's meant to be, it's meant to be. You know, people say you have a right to know, but do you actually are you ever gonna know? There's people that have that have passed away, I'm sure, that never knew the truth or knew someone else as being their parent, but that wasn't actually their parent. They took it to the grave, right? Yeah. So for me, what helps me, therapy hasn't really helped. In fact, I have some traumatic therapy experiences. I'm not gonna go into detail about that, but it's just for me, what's therapeutic uh is listening to like your podcast and hearing other people's stories. And also, I like to read memoirs of other people, some famous people like Viola Davis Finding Me, um, Matthew McConaughey's uh Green Lights, James McBride's Color of Water. Right now I'm reading a book called uh I Take My Coffee Black by Tyler Merritt. And when I listen to other people's stories on the podcast or I read these memoirs, for that brief nanosecond, Lily, it's a temporary distraction from the reality of my own story. If that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 47:40

Oh, completely. Same for me, right? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

Because I can literally obsess over this because it's just like you don't know your full identity, and then you don't know the whole story. Was I ever really told the truth? You know, based on the lies that uh have been uncovered regarding my maternal side, I don't necessarily know that what my mother told me was true. And maybe that was a way for her to hurt me because hurt people, I've been told, hurt other people.

SPEAKER_00 48:13

Oh, yeah, that's so hard. It's like, what's the truth? And are you ever going to know?

SPEAKER_01 48:19

And there's three reasons why I wanted to share my story. And one being that over the years, people have put labels on me. I've been called brash, unapproachable, reclusive, among other things. I was actually in a room once where the people were talking about me while I was in the room as if I weren't even there, like I was some kind of ghost or apparition. And I thought, how incredibly rude. But these people didn't know me and they didn't know my backstory. And so my hope is if there's someone out there that's listening to your podcast and they hear my story or someone else's story, and they have a tendency to judge other people based on their own life experience, their opportunities, that perhaps they'll re-examine their own moral compass to see if they're projecting those things onto someone else that didn't have those experiences, those opportunities, that lifestyle. That's my hope. The second reason uh why I wanted to share my story is that I've told bits and pieces of it to other people. And sometimes those sane people want to retell our stories for us, and they want to put a spin on it to fit the narrative that they're comfortable with. And then it no longer becomes our story. It's like this imposter version. And lastly, as oddly as this might sound, it's an opportunity to celebrate me and my existence and where I fit in in this world, if that makes sense. Um, I wrote a bunch of poems over the years. I've I'm I'm a poet, and I took a collection of some of my poems and put them in this book called Reflections: A Window into My Soul. It's available on Amazon or wherever books are sold, so if anybody's interested. But um, I have to give a shout out to the publisher, uh Devin Bree Green with Green Publishing. She designed my book cover, and it's such an accurate depiction. It shows a little girl looking at her reflection in the mirror with a sad face, and that's me. So I'm going to share one of my poems uh from the book that might resonate with some of your listeners. It's called The Family Curse. Some of my ancestors arrived here on a slave ship. They came to this country against their free will. They helped make the USA what it is today. No, they were not natives as previously told. They were clustered in shackles and sold. And some of my ancestors were owners of those slaves. And yes, I am ashamed, the master who fathered multiple bastards we now call MPEs, because it sounds so much better. Believe me, I agree. And some of my ancestors were immigrants that arrived on their own volition, hoping for a better life and affordable college tuition. But to their surprise, things went awry. The immigrant fairy tale did not reign true. They suffered from alcoholism, cholera, and the flu. Now the riches and fortunes were not bestowed. They barely survived the winter with no running water, an outhouse, and a wood burning stove. They refused to teach their grandchildren their language, culture, and traditions. They even went so far as to build custom cemeteries for their own kind and dug their own graves. I guess you could say they failed to assimilate. And the only role models we ever did see were the ones on TV. So I say salute to the mothers and fathers who raised their children without this dysfunction, because our family is cursed, every last one, including the cousins.

SPEAKER_00 51:52

Oh, Alethea, you're so talented. Make sure and send me the link for the book and I'll put it in the show notes down below, okay? Okay. Thank you so much for coming on today and for sharing your story. I know it's hard to talk about the traumas, the traumas of your your past, and I just appreciate you. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 52:17

Thank you for this that you're doing. That's such a blessing to some of us. It's cathartic to be able to share our stories so that people can see a different side of someone else they might not know.

SPEAKER_00 52:30

These stories are here for us to identify with. If you are an NPE and would like to share your story, email npestories at gmail.com. You do not have to give any identifying information. If you are an NPE and would like to share your story, I'd like to hear from you. Subscribe to this podcast to hear more. Come heal with us.