If you learned that your mom and dad had kept an enormous secret from you in an effort to protect you, would you be mad at them after uncovering the truth? Or would you understand why they lied to you for years?
For this 19-year-old man’s entire life, his 35-year-old sister has made it clear that she absolutely hates him. He thought she probably didn’t like that his entry into the world changed their family dynamic, or perhaps it meant there was less money to pay for her college education, so she simply took it out on him.
When he was around seven or eight, his mom and dad cut his siter out of their lives due to her hatefulness towards him. His sister would call him terrible names any time she saw him and acted aggressively.
If he sat down in close proximity to her, she would actually push him. She called him a freak, disgusting, and told him to leave their family.
“She even tried to convince my other siblings (aunts and uncles) to lock me out of the house if my parents weren’t home and let me run away,” he explained.
“They told our parents, and when they confronted my sister, she told them life would be so much better if I ran away and got hit by a car in the process. So that was it for them with her.”
“But even without direct contact, I was aware of how hateful she still was about me. I heard adults in the family discuss it. I heard my siblings talk about it. Nobody ever brought up the fact [that] I was her bio kid.”
Yes, you heard that right. He just figured out that his sister is actually his biological mom, and the people he thought were his mom and dad are his grandparents (but we’re still going to refer to everyone by the roles he thought they held, so it’s not confusing).
He doesn’t want to get into how he even pieced the truth together, but his sister then learned that he knew about who she was to him, and she reiterated how much she hated him and thought he shouldn’t exist.
She threatened to hurt him if he called her mom, and insisted she didn’t owe him anything. His parents freaked out when they heard about what his sister said to him.
“This has really shaken me because I suspect something bad happened to my sister, and that’s why I exist. But I have no way to really know. My parents don’t even know,” he added.
“They had always planned on telling me, but the way my sister has treated me gave them pause. I think they worried it would be super damaging to feel so hated by the person who gave birth to me, especially when we don’t know for sure something bad happened or if she maybe just hates my biological father.”
“The whole thing has made my relationship with some of my extended family weird. I still call my parents my parents and my siblings my siblings, which some find weird. But I also just have so many weird feelings about my sister. I don’t know how to feel about her.”
He’s not positive if his relationship with his sister could change, or if it even should. He’s wondering if he should be mad at his parents for keeping this big secret from him, but he’s not.
It has really messed him up to find out his biological mom cannot stand him, and he knows that if he had learned this as a child, it would have been even more hurtful.
I do think his mom and dad thought they were doing the right thing and protecting him by keeping his sister’s identity a secret, and his relationships do not have to change.
He also should not try to have a better relationship with his sister, given how unsafe she is for him to be around. And I think it would be helpful if he could go to therapy, perhaps even with his parents, so he can get help processing his emotions and the reality of his situation.
What advice do you have for him?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
