🎧 Episode 6: When Genetic Testing Turns Your Life Upside Down with Cotey Bowman

📝 Episode Summary:

In this episode, Liz and Cotey Bowman discuss the meaning, the reality, and the effects of NPE: a non-paternity event, or not parent expected. If there’s one thing we want you to walk away from this episode knowing, it’s that there are people who understand, and there are professionals that can help.

NPE can be a really lonely experience. Most people dealing with this reach out to someone in the hopes that they will gain their understanding. This tends to be a big ask, as not a lot of people are experienced or familiar with this situation. But there is knowledge, understanding, and tools out there to help, and we’d like to share some of them with you today.

💬 Episode Notes:

• NPE’s have become more and more common with the rise of DNA technology and people taking the opportunity to try the tests.

• Most NPE’s grow up knowing something is a bit off, but aren’t sure what it is in terms of belonging. 

• One of the main points in this discovery is the identity struggle NPE’s experience.

• Realizing who you are after this discovery and focusing on who you want to be can aide in the healing process. There is a loss, absolutely, but your identity is still there. The culmination of all your experiences (including this one) makes up your identity and who you are. This is all building on the foundation you already have.

• Starting to heal begins with processing rejection, sadness, and loss. Oftentimes the experience is an unfinished story. 

• The experience of grief through NPE is often a loss that occurs without closure or any clear understanding. 

• Attachment does not happen overnight. As you meet your biological connections, you’re still dealing with the loss of what could have been and the idea of what could be. 

• Emotional symptoms and physical symptoms of grief go hand in hand. Fatigue, sadness, and inability to experience joy are all common symptoms that NPE’s experience.

• Confiding in a spouse or loved one can open an opportunity for growth in that relationship. Being a loved one of someone going through this, the best thing you can do is simply be there.

• You need to find a way to be in a place of full acceptance before you can really move on and thrive in your life. Sometimes this looks like radical acceptance: when you choose day to day, in each moment, to accept things as they are, and accept the situation as it is. 

• Another part of radical acceptance is realizing that you are not the one at fault. While this is happening to you, it is not happening because of you. 

📚 Resources Mentioned:

• Find out more about NPE, the NPE Counseling Collective, and search the NPE therapist directory at npecounseling.org

• Search and join the “NPE Counseling Collective” private Facebook group

• Search and join the NPE “After the Discovery” page

🔗 Stay Connected:

Instagram: @millenniallifecounseling

Facebook: Millennial Life Counseling

Website: www.millenniallifecounseling.com