Speaker 1: Already. When you're sixteen year old calls you at five am,
Speaker 1: that's not normal. But she was screaming and saying that
Speaker 1: the police were in the house. That's Mattie Corman speaking
Speaker 1: about the day her family's secret came to light. And
Speaker 1: I couldn't understand what she was saying. And I couldn't
Speaker 1: even comprehend that police were in our house, let alone
Speaker 1: why they were there. And I could also hear that
Speaker 1: my boys, who were eleven at the time, were with her,
Speaker 1: and I could hear them crying. And it was even
Speaker 1: right now, I feel like my face is going to
Speaker 1: fall off even just talking about this and remembering this moment,
Speaker 1: because it was the moment that all of our lives
Speaker 1: changed forever. I'm Danny Shapiro, and welcome to the new
Speaker 1: season of Family Secrets. I'm so excited to share ten
Speaker 1: extraordinary stories with you. The thing about Family Secrets is that, well,
Speaker 1: we all have them, I mean everybody. The pod now
Speaker 1: has over twenty two million downloads. It turns out so
Speaker 1: many of us can relate. This is our best season yet,
Speaker 1: which drops on Thursday, December nine. Here's Adam Man's back
Speaker 1: speaking about the night his life changed forever. The first
Speaker 1: thing my father asked me was whether I was sitting down,
Speaker 1: which I don't think anybody had ever asked me that
Speaker 1: in real life before. I guess that question is only
Speaker 1: asked when you think that the news you're about to
Speaker 1: deliver might literally knock somebody on their ass, that the
Speaker 1: person's legs might stop working. I got off the phone
Speaker 1: with my father and I stood there crying hysterically. And
Speaker 1: I don't think that I spoke out loud to my brother,
Speaker 1: but I think I spoke in my head to my brother,
Speaker 1: said something along the lines of like, what have you done?
Speaker 1: And this is key? And Julie Wang, who learned as
Speaker 1: a young child that keeping a secret was the only
Speaker 1: way to protect her family, m I think the message
Speaker 1: of having to lie about the fact that I immigrated,
Speaker 1: the fact that English was my second language, the fact
Speaker 1: that I was undocumented, embedded in me a deep shame
Speaker 1: that went to the core of who I was. If
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell people I was born in China, which
Speaker 1: was at that point very central to my identity and
Speaker 1: my life, it must have been to my childhood mind
Speaker 1: that pretty much everything about me was worth being ashamed about,
Speaker 1: and everything about me should be kept secret. Trench Wrestler
Speaker 1: grew up on a cattle ranch in South Dakota, a
Speaker 1: place where being a gay man was a dangerous thing,
Speaker 1: so he had to keep a secret, especially from his dad,
Speaker 1: about the very essence of his identity. Queer people don't
Speaker 1: grow up as ourselves, you know. We grew up playing
Speaker 1: a version of ourselves, and we did these mental summersaults
Speaker 1: to try to justify who we are and present one
Speaker 1: thing to the world and another thing that we keep inside.
Speaker 1: And all of that erodes are authenticity and our sense
Speaker 1: of self. And it totally has one purpose, which is
Speaker 1: to minimize our own humiliation and our own shame. You know,
Speaker 1: I knew that if I came out, my parents would
Speaker 1: not be okay with it, and I knew it would
Speaker 1: cause a rupture. I hope you'll join me and my
Speaker 1: amazing guests for this new season of family Secrets. Inside
Speaker 1: every secret is a truth, and you know what they say,
Speaker 1: The truth will set us free. Coming Thursday, December ninth,
Speaker 1: from my Heart Media and available wherever you get your podcasts.