Keys to Surviving My Shocking DNA Revelation

The only thing constant in life is change. - Heraclitus

0:04

Good evening and welcome to my humble podcast abode. I am Cocoa Griot, just a 50 something who is amped to talk to you dear listeners about life, love, and a hodgepodge of other topics. When you go through your entire life feeling like you are a genetic fluke, it undermines your self-esteem in ways that are hard to describe. I never wanted to take pictures with my family, because it was always a reminder of how I didn't look like my siblings. I didn't like to hear people constantly say that my siblings looked exactly like our dad, and then there was me. This weighs on a child when people are constantly mentioning the fact the child doesn't look like everyone else. So here I am 55 years old before I find out exactly who I'm supposed to be. From this day forward, I live my life, knowing that I wasn't some kind of random, genetic fluke, I look like someone. I look like my biological father.

1:02

Tonight I want to talk about the NPE survival strategy, I've been working on since I talked with you guys last. NPE stands for not parent expected. If you listened to my episode last week: Mama's baby Daddy's maybe. I'm not who I thought I was, you know that Ancestry.com shared a truth with me that my family hid for years. My NPE survival strategy. The truth set me free, but it made me miserable too. The first component of my NPE survival strategy is the family that I have known and loved for years, and my friends. People that I shared this information with really stepped up and let me know they are here for me. My aunt's reiterated that there's nothing different about how they see me, even though this newfound information was shocking. They reminded me that I grew up loved and nothing is different about that. I was grateful for the outpouring of love and avenues that are researched as part of my survival strategy was to join groups of people like myself. These groups helped me immensely. The groups are Togetherness Heals- NPE Only, DNA Surprises Support Group, and NPE Only: After the Discover. The caring people in these groups embraced me and let me know I'm not alone. Several people have walked this journey that I know that I have a sense of connection and community that is indescribably valuable. I even learned about facial recognition DNA testing from someone in the group. So I decided to compare my face with my biological father's face. Let me tell you about the results I received. I have to pay the bills for this podcast.

2:55

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3:31

Okay, I know it wasn't cool for me to leave you guys hanging like that. Let's talk about how facial DNA works, then I'll tell you about my results. The simple explanation is that the face of one person is scanned, and the traits from that face are compared to another person's traits. In this case, I had my biological father's face scanned and compared it to my face. The DNA site says that anything over 50% indicates a relative. My match that this man was 77%. I chuckle when I think about how a good friend said, "You wasted your money on that because anyone looking at the two pictures could see you look just like this man". I've heard good and bad stories about how families treat a newfound family member. I want to say this. Children are the innocent ones in situations such as mine. Villainizing a child, just because they are seeking information is immature and unfair. I accept the fact that the truth makes you uncomfortable, but I won't stop telling the truth, to make you comfortable.

4:43

Thanks for listening this evening, and as always I wish you good health, good fortune, and good night, Cocoa Griot out.