Dear Abbi,

I recently found some boxes of stuff from my childhood in the basement of my parents house.  As I was looking through the old photos and crafts, I started noticing I wasn’t in any of the pictures.  There was another little girl in all of the photos with my parents. All of the drawings were signed by “Lindsay” and not my name.  I have one sibling, a brother, Daniel.  I’m starting to think that I might have had a sister that no one told me about.  I want to talk with my parents about it, but I’m so angry I think I might blow up.  How do you think I should approach this situation?

Secret Siblings

Malloy, Idaho

Dear Secret Siblings,

From what you’ve told me, I don’t think you have a secret sibling. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I think you are a case of the child-switchers.  I think you probably aren’t your parents child, and that in fact, you and this “Lindsay” were probably switched at a young age.  I’m guessing you’re around 34-35 years old?   Back in 1974-1975, the government issued a task force that was in charge of family interaction, the Child-Switch-Initiative.  If families were having a problem with certain children, they had a small window of time to exchange them in for a new child (approx. the same age).  Idaho was a hotspot for this actually so it really makes sense that you were an Exchangeable(that’s what the exchanged children were called).  Most Exchangeables have little memory of their early years, and their parents “must have misplaced all their baby photos”  Being an Exchangeable isn’t so bad.  There was another very short window of exchange in March of 1976, so your new family must have been really happy with you, or you probably would have been put into the system again.  This is a very hush hush situation, that’s almost never talked about, so bringing it up to your family might cause some emotional outbursts—especially if you remind them of their real daughter, Lindsay.

Best of Luck,

Abbi