Where I Come From: My Biggest Secret

I am completely terrified to write about my biggest secret. I have kept this secret in for my entire life. No one outside of my family knows. I never admitted this secret to anyone and I know that I can't keep it to myself any longer.

Usually I avoid the subject if I can. However, the topic has come up and I wasn't able to find a way to change the subject. Instead of telling the truth, I have lied about my secret to my friends and acquaintances. I have created a story that I tell everyone if I have to. This lie has been something that I have said so many times that I almost believe it. I know that I wish it was true.

My biggest secret is that I am an illegitimate child. I was born out of wedlock. I am a bastard child.

Where I grew up, if people didn't have a traditional family, they didn't fit in. You would be seen as an outcast. So I created a very elaborate lie that I could turn to if directly asked about my parents and their relationship.

The truth behind my birth and the relationship my parents had is that my father was married, just not to my mother. My mother was the "other woman." My father's wife was terminally ill. He had met my mother and started a relationship. Eventually my mother became pregnant with me. Nine months later, there I was.

My last name is my mother's last name. My father didn't want to sign the birth certificate. He's a Mason and he knew if they ever found out that he had fathered a child out of wedlock, they would kick him out.

My mother had a difficult time with my father's inability to or no desire to claim me as his. She also could no longer stand feeling like she was waiting for my father's wife to pass away. So they broke up. I was around 2 years old.

My lie that I turned to whenever directly asked was that my father and mother were married for only a year before I had come along and that they divorced when I was 2. When asked about my last name, I said that when my parents had divorced, my mother had been so angry with my father that she had my last name changed to hers.

I have been ashamed of what surrounded my birth and the beginning of my life. I have used the lie so many times to hide my biggest secret that I have almost convinced myself that it's true. In fact, when someone asks me, the first thing that comes to my mind is the lie, not the reality behind it.

I am tired of lying to others, and to myself, about my parent's marital status when I was born. I don't want to hide that I'm illegitimate anymore. I have felt so guilty for not having the strength to tell people the truth. I have not liked myself very much because of it.

I am writing this to free myself and to let others in the same situation as me know that they are not alone. I have now shared with you my biggest secret about being born out of wedlock and I am done with being ashamed.