She made a life-changing decision after the discovery
A woman has opened up on the terrible discovery that her parents were actually siblings.
Teresa Weiler, 64, spoke about her staggering story on BBC Radio 4’s Life Changing programme.
Weiler was adopted as a toddler by a senior civil servant and his wife in Middlesex, and described it as a loving home.
But when she reached 18, her father handed over her original birth certificate where she discovered her biological mother’s name.
The document said that her mother was named as Teresa Maureen O’Reilly, a waitress who had lived in London St Pancras.
But there was no mention of her father on the certificate.
So when she was in her mid-twenties, Weiler decided to contact social services and get hold of her adoption file.
This revealed that Weiler’s biological mother, O’Reilly, gave birth to her when she was 16.
She then realised that her biological father was her mum’s 15-year-old brother, Sean.
In a moving interview with Dr Sian Williams, she spoke about the emotions and trauma she went through after making the shocking discovery.
She said: “The first thing that happens is the shock and the revulsion and the shame, because I’d grown up in a strict Catholic family where sex before marriage was even a no-no.
“So, for me, this was off the scale.”
In the interview, she spoke about how she began to question why she was abandoned by her parents growing up. She also wondered whether her progeny was the cause of health issues she was suffering from such as early onset arthritis.
She continued: “So this explains why no-one will come back for me, this explains why no-one wants me.
“I didn’t think my family would still want me, I thought they would turn their back on me if they knew the truth, and I couldn’t face the shame of telling friends or other people the truth.”
Weiler then spoke on the negative impact the discovery had on her, labelling herself as “tainted goods”.
When asked how she continued on with life, she said: “I made a very important decision – I decided that if I had come from that background, and with all the physical and mental challenges that might make for vulnerability of children of my own, I decided I would never have children.
“That was huge, because I dearly, dearly wanted children, that was one of my greatest wishes. But I simply didn’t feel that I could bring a child into the world knowing that just one generation previously, that had been the history.”
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