Creepy.

It’s Thursday! Which means the weekly motherlode of syndicated advice columns to drink my morning coffee to. Today’s crop yielded the usual smattering of neurotic kinksters, traumatized 9-11 survivors and dating disaster stories – but the letter below – well, I dunno that I’ve ever seen anything that creeped me out in an advice column as much. You can read the answer at slate.com if you’re interested in how someone would respond to a stranger writing in to confess what is really a twisted obsession with another person’s life (switched at birth “she” lived “my” life). Traveled across the country? Snooped/interviewed the other person under false circumstances? I dunno. Something about this letter just tweaked me. I’m glad I’m not either of these people. You can just imagine the made-for-tv drama coming on the heels of whatever disastrous end this tale could have.

Dear Prudie,
I learned a few years ago, after both of my parents had passed on, why I had a different blood type than everyone else in my family. I was not adopted—it would have been easier to learn the truth if I had been. I was born in a really crummy hospital that shut down long ago. Someone at that hospital switched me with another newborn; there were only two baby girls born that day, and they mixed us up. It took a lot of research and a cross-country journey, but I tracked down the woman who got “my” family. Since “her” family is very close and means everything to her, I didn’t tell her what I knew. I was writing a college paper at the time; the assignment was to find someone who was born on your birthday and interview them, so I interviewed her. She and her children look exactly like the family who raised me, and when I saw her family pictures, I knew beyond a doubt; I look exactly like my birth mother. All four parents went to their graves never knowing they’d raised someone else’s child. It turns out that I have several birth siblings. I’d really like to contact them, but I have a couple of friends who tell me, “Let it go” and “Don’t mess up someone else’s life.” But my parents never gave me up! What would be a graceful way to approach this family, who has never known of my existence? I would like to help my “switchee” meet her birth family, too. She may need to know certain things about her genetic history. And I’d like to know my birth family’s medical history for the sake of my children, if nothing else.