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Steve Lickteig as a baby, being held by his biological mother, who pretended to be his sister for 18 years.
A Kansas radio producer has turned the camera on his own family to help him understand just how a huge family secret could have been kept for so long.
For the first 18 years of his life, Steve Lickteig thought he was the adopted son of a World War II veteran and his wife, reports NPR.
His adopted parents ran a farm in Kansas and raised Steve and eight of their biological children.
Lickteig wondered all of his life who his real parents were until his 18th birthday, when two of his best friends told him the truth.
His adopted parents were, in fact, his biological grandparents and his older sister Joanie was his biological mother.
"I don't have a very strong recollection of it, actually. But what I do remember is it was right before high school graduation, the night before," Lickteig said.
"They walked into my bedroom and they shut the door and Vance said, you know, 'We have something we want to tell you.' And then he just blurted it out, it just sort of came out of him. He said, "I know who your mum is."
In his film, Open Secret, Lickteig explains how everybody around him knew for their entire lives that the woman pretending to be his sister was his biological mother.
After being caught in a compromising situation with a then girlfriend, Lickteig decided to confront his parents.
"[Joanie] looked at me, my mother, and said, 'I have no idea what you're talking about,'" said Lickteig.
"She kept denying and denying and finally my dad slammed his hand down on his lay-z-boy and said, 'Damn it, will you just tell him?'"
After his biological mother finally admitted the secret, it was never spoken of again, until the Open Secret documentary was produced.
"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." said Lickteig.
He says he hasn't kept in touch with his biological mother after he produced the documentary, an outcome he didn't anticipate.
"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’."
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