When Parents Lie About Adoption

May 8, 2008 — -- For more than 17 years, Jodi Applegate believed she was adopted.

And she had no reason not to, until her mother passed away and left her aunt to tell her the real story about her birth.

Applegate, 44, an anchor on the New York City Fox News affiliate, shared her family's secret on "Good Day New York," explaining how when her mother became pregnant with her in 1963 she disappeared from Wheeling, W.Va., where she lived.

She gave birth to Applegate and put her in a foster home in Pittsburgh for eight months, only to later return and take her back.

When she returned to Wheeling with her daughter, she said she had adopted the little girl, Applegate said.

"In those days, it was a scandal for a single woman to have a baby," Applegate said Tuesday on her morning program. "She said she had adopted me."

"I grew up believing that I was adopted," added Applegate, who did not return calls from ABCNEWS.com.

Several child psychologists told ABCNEWS.com that lying to children at all -- let alone about who their birth mother is -- could be traumatizing in the long run.

Applegate is proof, several psychologists said, that traumatic events affect everyone differently. While Applegate, who has had a successful career, has seemingly not suffered any debilitating psychological effects, other adults who find out important truths about their lives late in life often react differently.

"I've seen secrets play out in a number of different ways," said Mary O'Leary Wiley, a psychologist based in Pennsylvania who specializes in adoption issues and has not treated Applegate. "Sometimes the secret will not be a really big deal and people will go on with their lives and understand the context and cope well."

That is the likely scenario in Applegate's case, Wiley said.

"Other times when presented with a secret in adulthood or late adolescence, the young adult questions everything that has ever been told to them and wonders if they can trust anything in their life," Wiley said. "It shakes them to the core and causes great difficulty on a personal level but also with trust among a family."