The Persistent Urge to Be Enough

An adoptee's cross to bear

“I always knew I was enough,” I cry to my therapist. “I knew I deserved love.” 

“You did,” she says. “You do.” 

“The problem is I could never get anyone to believe it.” 

Being adopted, at least for me, has been less about some diabolical inner dialogue perpetuating a lie that I’m not worthy of love because my biological parents didn’t want me and more about trying to prove what I already knew as a human person: I am inherently worthy of love. I am enough because I exist. 

Why can’t they see it? has been my life’s essential question, one I’ve always answered for myself with, It’s okay, I see it, to remain at least half-alive. 

I knew I was enough when I won my 10th Varsity letter in high school and my parents weren’t at the banquet. I hadn’t expected them to come, but it stung when a friend’s mom whispered to her husband, I can’t believe they didn’t show up, loud enough for me to hear across the table. I knew I was enough when I was failing Chemistry one quarter junior year and erased the voicemail my teacher left on my answering machine because I’d gotten very sick and I never really understood the concept of moles anyway. I knew I was enough when I had to tell my parents I didn’t want to go to the small college that had offered me nearly a full ride because I thought I would be miserable there and we drove home in complete silence in the rain. I knew I was enough when I was sexually assaulted my freshman year of college and my mom wouldn’t take the two-hour drive to comfort me because I would be home soon. I knew I was enough when I graduated college early and then got my Master’s degree in a year and then got an Advanced Graduate degree and then started my Doctorate. 

I knew I was enough. But they didn’t. 

The adoptee urge to prove that you are enough is sort of like suiting up in armor every morning. Sort of like going into battle against and for yourself. You must validate to the people who adopted you that you are worth the money and time and effort, and this isn’t even specific to the sorry ones in a Tier 3 situation whose adoptive parents might as well have picked up a dying plant on the side of the road and called it their child, watering it occasionally. Tier 1 adoptees, too, because of the unconditional love they’ve received, are trying to prove themselves in a different way: they’re trying to make themselves as good as the love feels. They’re trying to answer the question: how did I end up so lucky? even though that’s actually how it’s supposed to be. It’s really sort of fucked all around, isn’t it?

Aside from that one blunder in Chemistry, I’m an Academic. In high school I’d decided that I would pursue my doctorate someday, probably in some subconscious attempt to announce that once I finished I would surely be enough for them. Academia, then, became my safe place and my ever-present cheerleader. It was a thing I could count on to continually be a marker of my worth. As adulthood sped on and it was clear that I was not going to receive the love I knew I deserved, from either my parents or any significant other, each A I received was like an offering to myself. A whisper of, You are right! You’re enough. 

Academia didn’t leave me in the middle of the night. Academia didn’t tell me I can’t move back home even though my life just fell apart due to aforementioned leaving. Academia didn’t tell me I’m not going with you. Academia didn’t call me a bitch and wish they’d never adopted me. Academia told me a different story than the one I was told. It told me: you are good and intelligent as hell. 

Me being enough in Grades 8 and 21

Pursuing advanced degrees has been pretty self-serving (but perhaps it always is). I thought maybe if I learned everything I could, if I knew everything there was to know, I wouldn’t suffer as much. It turns out I suffer more, knowing that humans will always error, always hurt each other. That was my fault, going into psychology, I suppose—but it’s also been the most important thousands (many, many thousands) of dollars I’ve ever spent, for many more reasons than a few degrees on the wall. 

Yesterday I finished my final paper for my last doctoral class. I’ll start my dissertation in the spring. Having come this far, having done so much internal Hard Emotional Work, I am ready to be finished. Not because I don’t always want to be learning, but because I’ve finally reached a point in my life where I am tired of trying to prove something to people who will never see what I see. Who are not going to throw a parade and admit they were wrong all along. Who have already shown me what they believe. I don’t need that. 

What I need is to take this great flame of love burning inside my chest for myself and for others and send out this reminder to all my fellow adoptees: You are enough. I promise you can rest.