The Shocking Turn of Events That Happened as This Man Uncovered the Dark Truth About His Family

the shocking turn of events that happened as this man uncovered the dark truth about his family [Music] he was just a normal guy or so he thought decent family life good friends and he was an aspiring marine for his whole life he had been lied to and for what just so that his father could be safe these questions would haunt him for the rest of his life what did he do to deserve this it was the night before he would graduate and all steve lichty could think of was about his future he had no idea his past would haunt his thoughts after what his friends decided to tell him that night and his friends had delayed as much as possible before they finally gathered the courage to tell him it was such a shocking secret that everyone in their small town in kansas knew except for steve steve grew up with eight other siblings while steve and his big sister joanie had a large age difference he never thought much about it his parents mary and don lichtig said that they had wanted another son and that's why they decided to have him he had never questioned it after all he assumed that it would be the people who raised him would tell him the truth but the truth it seemed wasn't mary and don's priority mary and don tried their utmost best to ensure that steve never learned about the truth and to some degree they succeeded yet he had an unexplained sense throughout his life that something was not as it should have been at a young age he explained away his sense of uneasiness as teenage angst all people his age experience but no matter how hard he tried to think about it the sensation was simply not going anywhere it didn't add up much but he had no idea why everyone in their community knew the truth though his teachers classmates close friends and the rest of his siblings all kept it from steve whispers rumors and speculation followed him but behind locked doors the sordid truth remained close 18 years had passed since the beginning of the lichtig's debacle mary and don did their best to spare him the truth but it finally came out as all secrets do but steve wasn't ready for it steve was still completely oblivious to his family's dark secret just before his high school graduation but his friends had decided the deception had gone on for long enough even if their parents had sworn them to secrecy they knew they couldn't keep it from steve any longer they feared that if they didn't tell him no one would steve's friends didn't know how to tell him the truth of who his parents were they knew it would change his whole life and didn't want him moving into a new chapter of his life without knowing the truth about who he really was they knew it was their last chance since he was joining the marines one of his friends quietly said steve we have something we want to tell you steve couldn't even understand what his friend was attempting to say to him at first what were his best friends trying to tell him and why were they so serious your sister joanie well and what his friend said next would haunt him forever steve recounted this life-shattering moment explaining i was just silent and they filled the silence with what they knew they told me who my mother was and they told me that they had known for basically their entire lives and that everybody i had grown up with had known for their entire lives and they felt that this was the time that i needed to know so who was in fact steve's parents his friend told him that his biological mother was his older sister joni steve was in complete shock and had no idea how to react if joni was his mother then who were those people who for 18 years had called themselves his parents after this discovery he didn't even know who he was let alone what it all meant but steve only had one question after hearing this news who else knows steve asked steve couldn't imagine that actually the whole community had known and not told him alan replied quietly everybody he felt extremely vulnerable and when the extent of the betrayal really sank in his real father had abandoned him he now had no idea who he really was and what this all meant he did the only possible thing that he could do at the moment for another six weeks steve kept the secret to himself before he asked his parents or rather the people who were claiming they were his parents steve took part with big smiles in his graduation ceremony and played along with it all but everything was a farce i didn't say anything to anybody after i found out steve said this was the middle of may 1987 i had high school graduation the next night went to it actually spoke at the graduation went to all the parties did everything but it wasn't long until the ticking time bomb he was carrying in his head would finally go off i held it in for another month and a half and when i confronted my parents my grandparents about it steve explained then being an 18 year old and angry i ran away i got into a car and drove to the nearest town which was 20 miles away rented a motel room with my friends the doorbell unexpectedly rang and he felt something was about to change forever steve opened up the door and joanie stood there his companion for his entire existence posing as his adopted elder sister it was time to confess and she had hunted him down to do just that we had a moment of yes this happened i'm sorry i was mostly silent steve said but now the truth was actually out steve's grandparents and mother should tell him how and why they have hidden this information from him for so long steve recalled part of it was the time of this which was the early seventies and also it was a small town a tight-knit community the community members who knew who didn't say anything were just trying to be good neighbors it turned out that joni became pregnant out of wedlock and her parents had chosen to raise steve for themselves to preserve their family name but this is not as rare as you might imagine danny shapiro managed to interview steve for her podcast named family secrets and says more and more people are discovering their true roots today particularly as home dna kids are becoming more and more common she even claims that it is an epidemic and something that is occurring everywhere in the world as we speak but is it appropriate for a family to keep up with the lies about their own personal identity danny shapiro said in an interview with today that ultimately people do have a right to know and i think also feel liberated by knowing the truth the secret keepers are carrying a burden but the question is not so much whether they should share that secret but when but was steve ready to face it after he had learned his personal truth just after steve learned that his biological mother was his sister he went into the marines he then married and settled down and ended up with a good career at nbc news but his relationship was not well developed and the pair filed for divorce and for 15 years joni don and mary jane swore to never again speak of his real heritage throughout 2013 steve decided to start his project called open secret a series that shown some light upon what was still hidden about his parents in the series he interviewed his relatives and friends he had to make a journey of self-discovery in order to find the information he needed to learn more about himself and who could blame him he took the opportunity to discover his true identity in an interview with the krwg steve describes how the truth had changed him forever he said it was never spoken of again after that day you know not until 15 years later we just didn't talk about it and it sounds melodramatic to me but i changed that day steve's bond with his family had never and would never be the same i was a really happy-go-lucky guy in high school and something kind of shut off in me and the relationship sort of just became nothing he explained it was just obligatory and it was that way with the whole family you know i have a large family six sisters two brothers i felt like they were all sort of in on it so i just separated myself was there a possibility that the litig family could get together once again and sort it all out steve tried to put himself in his biological mother's shoes she had given up her child and lived in a lie for the rest of her life after that he could understand how heartbreaking it must have been i was trying to understand what she might have gone through to have had a baby and then see your own parents take the baby and tell you that the story is going to be that you have to tell this baby that you're his sister not his actual mother and you have to live that for basically the rest of your life however did joanie want to give steve up she says she did not want to give me up my parents say that's not true that she needed the help i think as with most things it falls somewhere in the middle steve said and i do believe she was told this is the story if we're going to go down this road this is the story that we're going to use and you're going to stick to it and that's when all of the family members were told so what would they think about the tv series steve had decided to make revealing their situation to the world steve's maternal grandparents don and mary jane were delighted to finally speak about the facts yet joni wasn't eager to sit down and talk the details through with anybody since she's married and has got other kids it proved to be a difficult subject and she did not want to subject her current life to it steve was quite frustrated about it she didn't want anything to do with his self-discovery quest or the film he was making steve said she just said to me she said i saw your film i understand why you did it i don't want anything more to do with it going forward so please don't ask me to be involved in it we've emailed a few times but we haven't had any conversation in a long while and it's not the outcome that i expected however there was one positive outcome after all after everything was done and the tv series was finally concluded steve immediately felt relieved and was finally able to say that he was no longer living in the past or in fear i got to have these conversations the film gave me and them permission to have a conversation that just would not have happened otherwise so yeah in the end i can walk away from this and say this did what it was supposed to do steve is married and one day hopes to have his own babies he now had yet another nagging question despite making peace with what really happened it was necessary to ask if joni wanted to be involved in his life after it was all said and done steve was going to want to know what his kids will know her as their grandma or aunt joanie replied with a grin joanie just joanie