“I’ve always thought that there is a darkness right between the spot where my thoughts begin to dissipate and the flesh begins to shine in the dark place the unthought thoughts never aware”
Christopher Quigley
“Unthought Known” is a term coined by Christopher Bollas in 1987 to describe what a person knows, and cannot verbalize, but still has an intuitive sense of.
What I have always called “intuition” or maybe “insight” has maybe been a series of one unthought known after another. In her book, NPE* A Story Guide for Unexpected DNA Discoveries, Leeanne Hay states that at 16, she voiced “I wonder if he’s my Father” after a conversation on the phone with the man that she would discover many years later was her actual biological father.
I wonder how many of these unthought knowns I expressed during my own childhood with regard to my parentage. As a child in a home with an abusive stepmother, I was a big fan of the song “Maybe” from the musical “Annie” and I often wondered when my “real” parents were going to come and rescue me. Was my affinity for this song a mechanism for escape or an unthought known?
Although I love my dad, I have to admit, he turned a blind eye towards the abuse that my stepmother heaped on me and often was not “there” both physically and emotionally. I intuitively knew this was for several reasons: 1) My mother had been the love of his life and he was still grieving her loss, 2) He had a strained relationship with his own family; and 3) On some level, he may have known I wasn’t his child.
I do not know that last item with any certainty. He knew my biological father. They had worked together, all my parents did. When I look at the photos I have of my biological Father and Grandfather, I can see the similarities plain as day. Did he? But, when I met the man in person, there wasn’t a “connection” that some people look for, however, it was years before my NPE discovery, and I thought he was nice and the conversation a little strained.
I always say that I was gobsmacked by my NPE discovery. Others out there who discover their DNA Surprise the way I did – thru a direct-to-consumer DNA test – have often said that on some level they knew, or suspected. They did not look like, act like, or fit in with the family they were born into. Neither did I. But I grew up only knowing my mother’s and stepmother’s families. I often wondered just how much like my dad’s family I was. I am a writer and a poet, much like my Grandpa Carl and my Aunt Pat, so I never really questioned the things that did not fit. Or maybe I wanted them to fit so badly, I just ignored what was right in front of me?
Of her discovery, DNAngels client Madree, says she always joked with her Dad that she was someone else’s child and he would say he had the blood test to prove paternity. But when we were born, it was merely a type-matching test. She feared however that her Ancestry test was going to bring back results that told her otherwise. She had good reason to fear. Our discussion triggered a memory of my Dad, adamantly declaring he was my father.
There are a lot of little vignettes teasing the edges of my memory. Thoughts I can almost grasp, that I can sense would maybe hold some sort of clue that maybe I DID know, but I’ve locked it away.
People’s minds, particularly the minds of children, are like wells—deep wells full of sweet water. And sometimes, when a particular thought is too unpleasant to bear, the person who has that thought will lock it into a heavy box and throw it into that well. He listens for the splash . . . and then the box is gone. Except it is not, of course. Not really.
Stephen King’s The Eyes of the Dragon
I’ve always prided myself on having an exceptional memory, but these memories that tug at the edges of my consciousness make me wonder what it is that is locked away in the casks at the bottom of the well of my mind.
All She Wants for Christmas
