Confessions of A… shocking DNA result

 Confessions of a is an anonymous column that looks to unearth viewpoints from unique individuals at Massey University. Each week we will give the spotlight to someone new, so If you think you’ve got an interesting story to tell, please get in touch with Editor@massivemagazine.org.nz  

Confessions of A… shocking DNA result

A few years ago, I received a commercial DNA result I wasn’t expecting. None of my father’s heritage showed in my profile, but 48% of someone else’s did. I often shared in other people’s puzzlement when they would say, “You’re related to them? Funny, you don’t look brown.” A lifetime of negotiating stories with myself about why I didn’t resemble them in any way, and people had only to look at my red curls and blue eyes amidst my family’s straight dark brown hair and dark eyes, seeing right through my hollow fabrications.

With the test results I now had hard proof, and the questions that plagued me throughout my life began to fit together like puzzle pieces: they don’t accept me because I am not part of their bloodline. I now came to feel like an imposter in the family narrative I had embraced with the same pride they had. Strangely, I also felt relief at finally knowing why I wasn’t accepted—I could finally build something better than those hollow stories.

Learning I was not the biological offspring of the man who raised me threw out the part of myself I had come to understand as part of him. He died suddenly at 50 years of age 17 years prior to this discovery, so I had already lost him physically, and now it felt like that was happening all over again

Identity usually takes years to solidify—that’s why adolescence is so hard after all. Midlife crises are the second time your identity takes a hit, changing and stabilizing with expected life stage transitions and assessments.

I’ve talked with many people experiencing the same shocking DNA results. Some talk about not being able to look at themselves in the mirror. Others feel they have no right to participate in family gatherings anymore. For me, it was my names, none of them told me who I was anymore. My birth certificate, my passport, everything was labelled incorrectly.

Realigning identity is a turbulent experience, and many people contributed harmfully to the process. Dad’s family couldn’t understand why I would pursue any of this, “because it shouldn’t matter, it doesn’t change anything about you” - a cruel and heartless thing to say to keep any embarrassment from their fragile psyches. It changes absolutely everything about a person. My mom felt I was abandoning her heritage and my father. I had a lifetime of bonding with my ancestry as much as we lived it, and learning the truth doesn’t negate the fact that my dad raised me, nor how I feel about him—only I know how I feel about myself.

Identity is forged through years of experience, bonding, learning history and attaching yourself to that history. That process occurs in a very condensed fashion when discovering shocking DNA results, so settling into a new identity felt like I had just come out of amnesia. A bit like wearing an ill-fitting dress, I had to keep trying it on and making adjustments.

In the end I didn’t come back to myself full circle, but I ultimately did come back to embrace some aspects of my original self - it took a journey without a map to rediscover it. Through persistent efforts at learning about my new biological family, (the Scottish ancestry behind my red curls) and forging new family relationships, I created a stronger sense of identity that finally fit. You can call me whatever you want, and now that all my names fit again, I finally know what to call myself again.