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

 

How It All Began

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 Time For the Truth

It was the night before he would graduate and all Steve Lickteig could think about was 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.

The Bond Was Built on Trust

Steve grew up with eight other siblings. While Steve and his big sister Joanie had a large age difference, he never thought about it much. His parents, Mary and Don Lickteig said 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.  

Something Doesn't Feel Right

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.

Rumors Around the Community

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 by since the beginning of the Lieckteig'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.

His Closest Friends

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 to them secrecy, they knew they couldn't keep it from Steve for any longer. They feared that if they didn't tell him, no one would. 

The Reveal

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.” 

He Felt His Life Fall Apart

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. 

It Was Not News to Them

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?

Absolute Shock

His friend told him that his biological mother was his older sister Joanie. Steve was in complete shock, and had no idea how to react. If Joanie was his mother, then who were those people who for eighteen 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.

Extreme Betrayal

“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, he was raging. 

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 time.

Staying Silent

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.

It Was Time to Say Something

“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.

He Received an Apology

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 that 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?

The Family Name

Steve recalled, “Part of it was the time of this, which was the early ’70s, and also (it was a) small town, a tight-knit community. The community members who knew, who didn’t say anything, we're just trying to be good neighbors.” It turned out that Joanie 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.

It Has Become a Common Occurrence

Dani 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 kits 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? 

Everyone Had the Right to Know

Dani 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?

Trying to Leave the Past Behind

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 fifteen years, Joanie, Don and Mary Jane swore to never again speak of his real heritage.

Setting up His Own TV Show

Throughout 2013, Steve decided to start his project called "Open Secret," a series that shone some light upon what was still hidden about his parents. In the series, he interviewed his relatives, friends, and relatives.  

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.

The Bond Was Never the Same

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 fifteen 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. 

His Personality Had Changed

“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 all were sort of in on it, so I just separated myself.”

Was there a possibility that the Lickteig family could get together once again and sort it all out?

What His Mother Went Through

Steve tried to put himself in his biological mother's shoes. She had to give up her child and live 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 must have gone through to have had a baby, and then see your own parents take the baby, and then 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? 

Numerous Different Possibilities

“… 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 that 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 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?

His Mother Did Not Want to Take Part

Steve's maternal grandparents Don and Mary Jane were delighted to finally speak about the facts, yet Joanie 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.

He Was Very Disappointed

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 had expected.”

However, there was one positive outcome after all.

His Life Made a Full 360° Turn

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.”

Grandma?

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 Joanie 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.”