Show Notes
S1 E37 Unraveling Shelli - Shelli’s story is about surviving childhood without the care every child deserves, doing the hard work to become healthy, and learning that patience is sometimes part of protection. Shelli spent much of her childhood raising herself. She grew up with a mother who could be magnetic and beautiful to the outside world, but emotionally unavailable and rejecting at home. Her brothers were much older, her raising father was largely absent, and Shelli learned early that comfort, affection, and safety were not things she could count on from the adults around her. Throughout her life, people repeatedly asked Shelli if she was part of an ethnicity she did not believe she was so she took an Ancestry test expecting only ethnicity answers. Instead, she opened her matches and saw her mother—and a man she had never met before.
(Content warning: This episode contains discussion of childhood neglect, emotional abuse, abandonment, attempted self-abortion, and sexual harassment/exposure)
SHOW NOTES In this deeply honest and layered conversation, Kara and Shelli discuss:
Growing up with emotional neglect and “quiet abuse” The lifelong impact of being unwanted, unseen, and left to raise yourself Being a fatherless daughter and growing up without a stable parental bond How painful truths can sometimes bring validation and clarity Why slowing down before first contact can matter The brutality of waiting for a response from genetic family The emotional complexity of joining a family system already in motion when you’ve never really had a family system of your own Boundaries, patience, therapy, and refusing to accept less than she deserve
Her reunion is still new, but it has already given her something she once could not imagine: emotionally available people who are kind, curious, and willing to make room. This episode is a powerful reminder that truth can hurt and heal at the same time. And sometimes the right people finally show up and say: you belong here.
Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.
At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.
For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from Unraveling Me
S1 E51 - Unraveling Chris & Mary Chris grew up knowing he was adopted—and knowing his genetic family. His parents shared celebrations, built relationships with one another, and made room for everyone in his life. He calls it “integrated adoption.” But even with that openness and connection, Chris struggled with feeling slightly different everywhere he went. Recognizing the grief connected to his adoption brought a question he hadn’t known how to ask: “Is it okay that I feel this way?” His raising mother, Mary, answered without hesitation: “Of course it’s okay.”
S1 E50 - Unraveling Corey & Kendall Kendall always knew he was adopted. His parents welcomed his questions, and when his adoptive mother died, his father showed him the name he’d been given at birth. Kendall was ten. He searched through phone books, library records, and adoption registries, and petitioned the court three times for his sealed records. Years of dead ends left him believing he might never find his genetic family.
S1 E49 - Unraveling Stephanie Stephanie’s story is about what happens when a lifelong search for roots finally begins. It is also a reminder that success does not always mean finding every answer. Sometimes it means discovering where you come from, building relationships along the way, and finding the courage to keep searching. Stephanie was adopted at three years old from a Mother Teresa orphanage in India and raised in a white Catholic family on Long Island. She always knew she was adopted, but for most of her life, she gave little thought to the identity, culture, and history she had lost.
S1 E48 Unraveling Tom J Tom Junod has spent much of his career investigating other people’s lives. His profile of Fred Rogers inspired the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, and his essay The Falling Man became one of the most recognized pieces of writing about 9/11. But in his memoir, In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man, Tom turns that investigative lens on his own family.
S1E47 Unraveling MP MP grew up feeling like the odd person out. He looked different from his brothers, struggled to connect with the man he believed was his father, and was repeatedly reminded that his interests, personality, and appearance did not fit the rest of his family. At 13, he unexpectedly learned that his parents had married after he was born. That first crack in the family story left him wondering what else he had not been told.