"The best view comes after the hardest climb."
~Mat Fraser
A surprise DNA discovery can feel like falling off of a cliff. You land in a dark hole, injured, and you feel like you can't move. But you must. Compassion, love, integration, mindfulness, and body awareness can all help an NPE/MPE to overcome the trauma of a surprise DNA discovery.
Recovery is possible, but it takes time to sift through the layers of emotions and the complexities of a DNA discovery. Although everybody's journey is unique, the healing process is best done beside a knowledgeable and compassionate NPE coach. With such an overwhelming discovery and shock to your system, it easy to get stuck in freeze or dissociation, where it feels like you are just going through the motions. It isn't easy getting out of frozen, because that will be when the indescribable pain hits. But you can't avoid going through the healing process. Anything you repress, deny, or avoid will just fester inside until it erupts in unpredictable ways.
A coach can help you use tools such as Mindfulness, Parts Work, and Embodiment to recognize stuck patterns. Since you must feel the emotions to heal, a coach can help you learn to regulate and express your emotions in healthy ways. A DNA discovery is often wrapped in copious amounts of shame. A coach can help you use self-compassion to overcome this unhealthy shame. Furthermore, a coach can help you overcome unforeseen obstacles such as possible rejection from your new relatives, losing trust in others and the world around you, feeling robbed of all the years you could have spent with your bio dad, and a deterioration of your relationship with your mother.
Recovery can help you reconnect with others and learn to trust again so you aren't alienated, reintegrate your identity to discover who you were really meant to be, and rewrite your story so that you are in the driver's seat and can make important choices about your future and what you desire it to look like.
DNA Discovery Recovery Healing Trail
Journaling helps sort out the layers of emotions you are feeling. It helps to make sense of what feels like an absurd reality. It can be immensely helpful to get your thoughts and feelings "out" of your body and onto paper so that you can function.
Mindfulness has been praised for its many benefits, but with a survivor of trauma (as in the case of an NPE), it must be done correctly, or it could potentially result in harm. Mindfulness can help regulate emotions, help you remain present, and help ease painful emotions.
Movement helps to release the trauma that is stored in the nervous system and in the body.
Ancestry research and putting your new family tree together is a great way to process this journey and is important to reconstruct your new identity and narrative.
Genogramming is helpful for discovering and overcoming patterns in your family, such as addiction, secrets, other NPE's, and the passing down from one generation to the next of shame and coping mechanisms.
Therapy is important if you have active addiction, suicidal thoughts, or co-occurring mental disorders.
Coaching can be important so you have someone who understands and can validate and help guide you through this discovery.
Parts Work may be essential for sorting out your blended and intense feelings and working through them. Parts work helps you work through the breakdown of relationships & trust and overcome family patterns and negative coping mechanisms. Parts work is also instrumental in helping you develop self-compassion and working through your now fragmented identity.
Creative Expression represents dealing with your discovery and emotions through creative ways such as dancing, writing, painting, and music.
Hard Work refers to putting in the work that is needed to heal. It may not be fair that this happened to you, and it wasn't your fault, but nonetheless, it is your responsibility to work through it. It isn't easy but it will be worth it.
Self-compassion is essential to develop or maintain during this journey. Self-compassion is needed to overcome the deeply embedded shame that often tags along with a surprise DNA discovery.
Brainspotting focuses on the brain-body connection and is especially helpful for getting out of a state of freeze or overwhelm. It helps with integration and with the release of trauma.
Support groups are vital for an NPE. Most people don't and can't understand the impact a surprise DNA discovery has on your life unless they've been there themselves. This is why support groups are so important. They are full of people who are going through or who have been through this that can relate and give you support. It is important you don't isolate yourself.
Reconnection is the anti-dote to alienation and a sense of not belonging. This discovery has a way of leaving you feeling like you no longer fit in anywhere. The betrayal by the one who is often closest to you destroys your trust. This is one of the most important steps of healing.
Re-integrating Identity is the last step of recovery in the DNA discovery recovery trail. This is when you become a truer version of yourself. You become more authentic because you finally know the truth about where you come from.
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