A Shock to the System

Dani Shapiro reveals what it feels like to uncover a family secret and how that secret leads to self-exploration.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let me tell you what it's like to find out
you were wrong, just plain wrong about who you are
and where you come from. To look in the mirror
one day and see a stranger staring back at you.
That's what happened to me. My name is Danny Shapiro,

(00:28):
and this is family secrets, Secrets that are kept from us,
secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we keep
from ourselves. A family secret was kept from me for
my entire life, the family secret which I stumbled upon
purely by accident, at the age of fifty four, that

(00:50):
my dad wasn't my dad. Since then, I've walked the
halls of my home looking at the photos and portraits
that hang on the walls. My father is a boy.
My grandmother and grandfather, great aunts and uncles, cousins from
the old country. My father's family was big un posterity

(01:15):
from as far back as I can remember. I was
told their stories, and their stories became my stories. Now
I stop and stare at each one of these people, who,
it turns out, are not my ancestors. The woman in
a high collared velvet blouse, her hair parted severely in

(01:36):
the center, the man in the ponce Ney wearing a suit,
his hand resting on a book, and further back, solemn
people in a dusty Polish village. Who are you to me?
I asked them, who are you to me? And in
the middle of the night I sometimes asked myself this question.

(02:00):
Who am I? Who am I? Now that I know
the truth? Welcome to Family Secrets, my new podcast. Each
week I delve deep into a family secret with a
very special guest. Here's an interesting fact. Not one of

(02:20):
the people I invited on the show to have a
very public conversation about their family secret said no, not one.
Some of my guests have written books or made films
about their discoveries. Some have never spoken of it before
to anyone outside their most intimate inner circle. But everyone
who has lived a portion of their lives in the

(02:41):
dark understands that secrets are deadly. They hold an invisible
power over us and shape our lives without our even
knowing it. But when the veil of secrecy drops, we
gain a new understanding, a new perspective on who we
really are and what has formed us. Family Secrets will

(03:04):
launch on February fourteenth. Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts
or on the i Heart Radio app, or wherever you
listen to podcasts. H