Jessica grew up believing she knew the story of her biological father, a high school boyfriend of her mother's who had struggled with addiction and left the picture before Jessica was born. Raised from infancy by the man who became her stepfather in every meaningful sense, Jessica nonetheless carried lifelong questions about her origins, and as an adult pursued a painful, ultimately disappointing relationship with the man she believed had given her half her DNA. Then, decades later, a routine consumer DNA test upended everything: the man she had spent years trying to know was not her biological father at all, and her real biological father was someone else entirely. In this episode, Jessica shares how that discovery forced her to reconsider her identity, her family's history, and the narratives she had been handed since childhood, and how she navigated the twists, the rejections, and the revelations with a remarkable amount of compassion and grace for everyone involved. 

Reality Life with Kate Casey 

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