Bonus: Listener Stories, Episode 19

In this bonus episode we hear from listeners in the Family Secrets community. To share your secret, call 1-888-SECRET-0.

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio High
Family Secrets. Family. It's Danny and we're back with an
episode of listener messages. Our mailbox has been rimming with
your amazing stories, so we're going to start dropping these

(00:23):
in from time to time as we continue to be
hard at work creating Season four of Family Secrets with
an amazing lineup of guests, launching in early October. I
know it's a long time to wait, and I know
we could all use the distraction, but good things take time,
and I promise it'll be worth it. In the meantime,
we're trying to bring you as much great bonus content

(00:45):
as we can, and to that end, here are some
stories recorded by you. Are wonderful, devoted listeners. I'm honored
and grateful that you're part of my world. By Danny,
I just stumbled across your podcast and was amazed at

(01:09):
the fact that I'm not the only one with such
family secrets. At age fifty five, I found out that
I was adopted. I had been out of contact with
many of my family since my mother's passing when I
was eleven and my father's passing when I was fourteen.
I was raised by family friends with intermittent contact with
those families members over the years. When I received that call,

(01:34):
I found that I had been adopted and may have
a half brother and half sister. Took me six weeks
to get to the bottom of that story by contracting
other cousins I hadn't seen in years. Subsequently, I found
that it was an adoption, but a very unusual one.

(01:54):
My biological mother went to the hospital and delivered me
using my mother and father's names on the birth certificate.
I've never had a reason to think I was adopted.
I found since that that I had a half brother
and half sister of my mother's side, whom I've met,

(02:14):
and just within this past year, with the help of
the detectives, researchers a little about my father's side of
his family, and have just within the recent few months,
found that I have another half brother, but on my
father's side. I've always been blessed that many family members,
biological or otherwise, but I had no idea how many

(02:39):
secrets there were, and the fact that for my entire lifetime, cousins,
aunts and uncles everyone knew but me. And now I
have information to share with my own daughters it's been
quite attorney, thanks for letting me share. I'm calling because,

(03:02):
like many families, we have a family secret. When I
was seven years old, I was molested by my brother
for over a year. He was a secret that I
held on two until I was in my mid forties
and felt safe enough to talk to my husband about
it and then got some therapy. In any case, the

(03:23):
situation started after my brother found out that he was
adopted by my biological father. My mother had been married
before and divorced, and his biological father wasn't interested in
keeping in contact. My mother married my father and he
adopted him as his My brother was twelve when my

(03:43):
parents told him this, and it really shook him, and
I think he became very confused about a lot of things,
and very shortly thereafter began to molest me and um.
This went on for over a year the time we
lived on the East Coast and and we moved to
the West Coast, and I was like a little bit older.
I was eight when we moved to the West Coast.

(04:05):
At the end of plan on how I would make
him stop, and I did, but I never told anyone
what happened, and I carried it with me for many years.
My brother and I maintained a relationship, pretty close family
relationship actually up and until I decided to come out
with the information. I spoke to my husband and then

(04:28):
went to a therapist who recommended that I talked to
my parents about it. They were divorced. Now. My father
was wonderful, very caring and loving towards both my brother
and I, exactly how UM I think he should have been.
My mother, however, was very angry at me for telling her,
and um decided that she was going to, in her words,

(04:50):
take my brother's side, and so she did. And also,
in the process of all of that volatility and that conversation,
said that she knew So I never really knew what
that meant. She and I have never discussed it since
um this was about four years ago. It's come up
now and then, but she's so volatle about it that

(05:10):
I don't engage in the conversation with her. I just
can't see that helping anything. HI at age fifty three,
on a Sunday evening, I just put my wife to bed,
tucked her in, and I want to watch some television
on my phone went off. The text from a lady

(05:31):
that said, you don't know me, but my husband was adopted.
The lady said her husband was adopted, and she gave
me a name that part of it was my uncle's name.
She gave me the birth mother's name, which was my
birth mother's name, and her birthday, which really shocked me.
And I said, I don't have a brother. It's only

(05:54):
me and my sister my entire life. And she kept
asking questions while she was asked the questions. I phoned
my parents, so I have the lady texting on their
match on the phone. I told my father what happened
the strange lady texting me. His immediate reaction was anger,
which told me he should have been asking questions, but
he was angry instead. Well, ultimately he admitted that I

(06:19):
did in fact have a full biological brother, and come
to find out, after fifty or three years, he did
fifteen minutes away from me. I'm a musician. He had
actually been at some of my shows. He didn't know
he had a brother or not. I little rough times
came after that. My parents were angry at the woman
for coming forward. They kept repeating that they were never

(06:40):
going to tell me. Ultimately, so through some pressure from me.
We all met and uh then I publicly broadcasted because
I was tired of after all that time not knowing.
Now you want me to keep it a secret. No, no,
that's not going to happen. So was put out there.

(07:01):
And my mother said afterwards, put out there ship the
best sleep of her life. And now they regret and
never telling me. So there was a happy ending in it.
And rather than be angry at the fifty three years lost,
my parents are seventy three seventy four, I said, I'm
not going to lose their relationship now, so I just

(07:23):
accepted it. Water into the bridge and it's all good now.
But I still not use the same brother. And it
was three years I didn't have one. It's really difficult
to get the concept, but I'm slowly going into it.
So that was my family's secret. If you'd like to

(07:49):
share your story, call one eight Secret zero and record
your story. We won't be able to run all the stories,
but we do want to shine a light on as
many a weekend. The number again is one eight Secret
and then the numeral zero. For more podcasts for my

(08:22):
Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,