In this bonus episode we hear from listeners in the Family Secrets community. To share your secret, call 1-888-SECRET-0.
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Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family Secrets, the secrets that are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we keep from ourselves. I've heard from so many about your own family secrets and realize that what we are creating for each other on this podcast is a community, a community for those who are looking for a safe and supportive space to unburden themselves. To that end, we've created a number for listeners to call in to record stories to share here in this space. This week, I'd like to share a few of those stories from our community. Thanks for listening, Hi, I just wanted to share a little bit about my family secret UM. I was raised by my mom and did not know my father, and a about a year ago, I chose to do UM a DNA test and connected with my father's first cousin. We eventually found out UM and I did end up contacting my father UM. It took about three contacts and it took about four months for him to find me get back with me because he did not believe that I was his daughter. So we did meet and we did a DNA test and of course it showed that he was my father, and since then it became a very rocky road. Um. He it turns out, is a member of the Catholic Church, and um is a Catholic deacon, and he very much did not want this to become public knowledge, even though I was conceived prior to him becoming a deacon and prior to his marriage to his wife. Currently, so I was told to refrain from telling anybody, and um he made it known that I was not to contact any other members of his family. UM. So she stated that he did want a relationship with me, but that relationship with me was a monthly lunch meeting. So I chose eventually to cut the relationship off because it just wasn't healthy. Um. But I am the secret, and I have two sisters that will never know me, and grandmother and aunt out there that will never know me. And that's my secret. My secret is actually my grandma's secret. She died a couple of months ago, and um, it was a very uh traumatic thing, I think for myself mostly. Uh. She was the heart surgery. She was left on bypass. Her chest opened for a few days, and she was awake and aware for some of it and able to write me notes. UM. It was obviously a painful death for me and my family, But we found out from her sister and her best friend afterwards that my grandma had actually known two years prior that she needed to get the surgery. But at that same point in time, she had found out that her husband was secretly UH spent all their money and had racked up a lot a lot of money in debt, and she felt she couldn't afford surgery, and none of us have confronted him to tell him that we know what was going on there. And she decided to clean houses for the last two years and make as much money as she could because she wanted to get out of that debt that caused, and she kind of worked herself to death. Her heart couldn't handle the stress of working and UH when it already needed help. And so we feel a little I feel a little bit like he caused her death. But I still get on the phone with him and talk to him and and say things like I love you. And it's really hard to reconcile, um, feeling like someone caused something and not being able to really say anything to them about it, and to know that she was holding onto a lot of things that she never wanted to tell us out of out of shame or anything else. And Uh, I'm really glad my aunt broke the secret. I guess. So that's my secret, thanks. Yeah. My secret is one that I've held for a very long time. When I was seven years old and living in public housing in New Orleans, I was molested by one of my neighbors and I never spoke a word of it too my parents or even my siblings, just because I I didn't think that they would be able to handle it. Um. I wasn't sure how they would react, and I felt like I would have let them down for not being strong enough and being able to fight back. So I held on to the secret for a very very long time. It wasn't until I was twenty three and I spoke to one of my very close friends about it after the topic came up and speaking about it for the first time in still when he is, I just broke down and I could barely talk about it. But after that instant, I started to open up more. I opened up and told my fiance in an incident, but until this day, I still have not told even one of my parents, are any of my siblings or any of my real close family, because I'm still not sure how to tell them this news, how to tell them what happened so long ago, and even why I helped it for so long. But as each day goes by and as I open up more and more, things do get a little easier. So that's my family's secret, and I'm not sure how long it will stay a secret, but hearing everyone else open up has kind of inspired me. Maybe I should open up. Maybe I'll help incipate. So thank you for this podcast. Thank you father, look what you do. If you'd like to share your story, call one eight eight 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 as we can. The number again is one eight eight eight Secret and then the numeral zero. 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