Woman Wonders If She's Wrong For Going 'Low Contact' With Her Parents After They Lied To Her About A Hereditary Disease That Runs In Their Family
It remains to be seen if a family can get over a lie like that.
fizkes | Shutterstock Keeping secrets from family may be a fairly common occurrence, but it rarely goes well, especially when the information withheld seriously impacts others.
One couple thought they could not only keep a huge secret from their children, but also lie to their daughter about it and get away with it. A medical diagnosis proved them wrong, however, and now the woman is taking a step back from her parents and shouting what she's learned from the rooftops.
A woman found out that her parents lied to her about a hereditary disease their family carried.
A 28-year-old woman shared the devastating information she had to figure out for herself after her parents tried to hide it from her on Reddit.
“I … recently found out that I have a serious hereditary illness that’s going to screw up my life, and I am so mad I can barely type this out,” she said.
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While she originally kept the illness private, she eventually confirmed what commenters suspected — it was Huntington’s disease.
“It’s a degenerative illness, no cure, nothing,” she explained. “My body’s just gonna slowly get worse. And the kicker? My parents have known this could happen my whole life and never said a [expletive] word.”
The woman revealed just how deep the deception about her family's health history went.
“This illness runs in my family,” she said. “My dad’s mom had it. His sister — my aunt — died from it a few years ago. I was living overseas when she passed, and my parents told me it was cancer. Cancer. They lied right to my face.”
“It wasn’t until I got diagnosed that they finally came clean and admitted she had the same illness I do,” she shared. “When I confronted them, my dad wouldn’t even give me a straight answer. I asked if he had it too, and he dodged every single question, acting like I was overreacting.”
Her mom’s reaction was just as bad.
“My mom, on the other hand, tried to justify it by saying they didn’t want me ‘living in fear,’” she continued. “Are you kidding me? I could have been prepared! Instead, they chose to let me walk into this blind.”
The woman's anger at her parents was compounded by the fact that she may have passed the genetic disease to her son.
“And here’s where it gets worse — I have a two-year-old son,” she stated. “My child might have this, and they never told me I was at risk.”
“I’ve gone low contact with my parents,” she admitted. “I can’t stand to even think about them right now.”
While her parents begged her not to tell her siblings, the woman later shared an update in which she revealed that she went forward with telling them.
“My brother started panicking,” she said. “He and his fiancée just started trying to get pregnant, and now he’s terrified … My sister was more shocked and distant, but she said she’ll get tested.”
This woman and her siblings, along with her son and any children her brother and sister have, have now been left to deal with the reality of their parents’ cover up. She’s not sure she can ever forgive them.
This kind of lie can be very damaging for a family.
Family secrets are one thing, but this kind of blatant lie told when lives are at risk has the power to shatter trust, possibly permanently.
“Traumatic, painful or life-changing secrets and lies can potentially damage an entire family’s mental health and well-being for generations,” Tara Bates-Duford said, writing for PsychCentral.
She continued, “While maintaining privacy from the outside world is important, maintaining deception within the context of the family can create distrust within the family, often turning family member against family member.”
This is, unfortunately, exactly what has happened for this woman’s family. Because her parents lied about a serious medical condition, which Bates-Duford said is one of the most common lies told in families, there is little room left for any trust on the part of her or her siblings.
Really, she is justified in going low contact with them.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.