To ask for the novel I'm writing... do you know anyone who found out their birth mother was a relative?

[Thelowquietsea]

A character finds out that her birth mother is a relative, not the mother who has brought her up.

While I can write copious notes on what I think this must feel like, and of course, I've scoured the www - I'd love to hear from anyone who's experienced this or know of someone who has? How they felt in the aftermath, particularly, towards those two women.

Yes.

My aunt had a baby when she was 15, which was brought up by her mother (my nan). So mother and baby were brought up as sisters. The baby found out when she was 16/17 after a dreadful family row. Baby wanted to get married, nan said she was a whore like her mother and all the skeletons tumbled out.

No one knew who the father was, except my aunt would not tell anyone. My cousin is 60 now, her bio mother has just died and still wouldnt tell her. She hates her. Absolutely hates her, but my aunt was one for playing mind games and she took all her secrets with her.

Nan? she loathed the baby and abused her and neglected her in the most awful way, really she only took the baby on to spite my aunt for the family shame. Used to do things like check her knickers every month so make sure she was having a period, refused to buy her new clothes, tights or deodorant. My nan was a god awful woman. I couldnt stand the old cow.

Bloody awful set of circumstances all round.

That's such a sad story, thank you for sharing

Don't give personal details freely to someone looking to openly profit from your experiences.

My details to give . If someone makes a few quid, good on them, they're writing a book I neither have the time, the inclination nor ability to write.

Yes, I do a friend who discovered her 'mother' was in fact her grandmother and her mother was in fact the person she knew as her oldest sister but I agree with a previous poster than her experience isn't mine to share, even if I did feel I had some privileged insight into how she felt.

@curtainsopen - I'm writing a novel. I'm just looking for stuff that will stimulate my own creative process. I haven't lied. Why are you getting involved in something that you can neither contribute to productively or have any interest in?

Someone I knew was bought up by their aunt.

They found out they were adopted when they were primary age, and said they were pretty hurt by it. They worked out it had to be a private adoption as their adoptive parents wouldn't have been approved in those days.
Bio mum came to talk to them about it once her husband (not their dad) and the adoptive parents had died.

I think they were delighted that the bio mum had come forward to "claim" them and it certainly helped bring closure.

Kat and Zoe Slater!!

Oh the impact was far wider. My nana systematically tried to destroy all her childrens lives. By the time she died she only had one child that talked to her and 8 grand children that didnt. Bloody awful woman.

Not personal experience but two famous people had that exact situation. Eric Clapton was brought up believing his mother was his sister and his gran was his mother. And Jack Nicholson was also brought up believing his mother was his sister. Exact same scenario. I suppose their autobiographies would deal with any emotional fall out.

Thanks all x

I believe Catherine Cookson was also brought up by her grandmother

iolaus true, it's the basis of the plot for one of her first novels, can't remember the name.
It seems to have been a more common scenario that we might believe nowadays. The young woman's 'reputation' and 'good name' had to be protected as well as the family.

I think Catherine Cookson's diaries have been published, they'd have some insight I expect

I knew someone who was brought up by their gran. Everyone in our community knew, the only one who didn’t was the child. It all came out in the end after about 18 years and I think the child was in denial for a long time about it. That being said, the child was born in the late 80’s so it seems a bit ridiculous that they grew up like this when the social stigma wasn’t as bad.

Here's a different one -

My Aunt was actually my Dad's biological cousin, not his sister. Her mother died in childbirth and they were in a country with no welfare, so the father couldn't look after her in addition to all of the other children, so her mother's sister brought her up, and they all ended up moving to another country.

She went through a spell in her late teens of rebelling and accusing them of not loving her because she wasn't their daughter/sister, but after a lot of reassurance that passed. She also travelled to see her biological family, who were in a soviet country, and they saw her as a financial resource, and kept asking her to buy them things and send them money, so she refused to have anything to do with them.

My ex boyfriend
He knew he was adopted, but thought his parents had adopted him via an orphanage attached to the catholic church which his parents attended

After his mum's funeral, his aunt (mother's sister), drunkenly came up to him and said something like 'not a day goes by that I don't love you'.
He left it a few months, but then did some digging.

Long story short, the 'aunt' was his mum, who had given birth when she was about 16
His adoptive parents had stepped in to take him, so that he wasn't adopted outside the family. They already had 2 biological daughters.
Unfortunately the aunt died about a year later, before he had told her he had uncovered the truth, so she died never knowing he knew

We had only been together for about 6 months when his mum died, so it was all quite a lot of take in at that point of our relationship, but he seemed to come to terms with it all quite well.
He said he had promised himself to never look for his birth parents while his mum was alive, because it felt disrespectful to her, but he was in his late-40s when she died, so he had made peace with his life by then

Thank you all