Show Notes
S1 E46 – Unraveling Sheridan By 40, Sheridan believed she had already done the difficult work of understanding her childhood. The man named as her father on her birth certificate died by suicide when she was six, leaving her to grow up beneath the weight of grief, religious shame, unanswered questions, and the childhood belief that perhaps she had not been enough to make him stay.
In her late 30s, Sheridan began confronting how that loss had shaped her. She recognized the connection between fatherlessness, fear of abandonment, and an identity built around being helpful, funny, charming, and indispensable. With the support of her husband, she worked through much of that grief and entered her 40th year feeling grounded.
Then she took a DNA test.
It was supposed to confirm her Dutch ancestry before a family trip to the Netherlands. Instead, Sheridan matched directly with a man identified as her father—a man who was very much alive.
Content note: This episode includes a discussion of suicide.
SHOW NOTES In this conversation, Kara and Sheridan discuss: Growing up after a father’s death by suicide and carrying the religious stigma surrounding it The fears children internalize when they believe they might have prevented a parent from leaving Worrying that mental illness or suicide might be part of your own genetic inheritance How loss and instability contributed to people-pleasing, overfunctioning, and the need to be indispensable The lasting impact of fatherlessness and the harm hidden inside jokes about “daddy issues” Loving and appreciating her mother while still making room for grief, anger, and unanswered questions Sheridan’s “psychology of and”—the ability to hold seemingly conflicting truths at the same time The surreal moment she realized the father she believed was dead was not her genetic father Trying to process an impossible result while her mother insisted the test must be wrong
Sheridan brings both lived experience and the insight of a therapist to a conversation about grief, worthiness, abandonment, and the stories children create to explain what adults will not tell them. Her story shows that healing is not erased when new information arrives, but it may need to expand to hold a truth we never imagined.
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.