You’re not enough: False Core Beliefs For Transracial Adoptees
`If you’ve listened to the first episode of my podcast Wreckage and Wonder: The Geode (https://wreckageandwonder.podbean.com/ ) you remember the geode as an image to describe the complexity of adoption. The Geode, in all it’s mundane, bruised and misshapen exterior hides a core of dazzling crystals and minerals swathed in ribbons of color. But the glory of it’s core cannot be seen unless broken in half. The geode represents the duality of the adoption experience. It is ugly and lovely, broken and colorful, wreckage and wonder. The life I live and love could not have come to be without profound loss.
Loss is a unifying experience for all members of the adoption triad (Adoptive Mother, Birthmother, Adoptee). The fracturing of a maternal bond and the loss of connection to biological belonging brought me a family I adore. Loss and infertility brought a child into my parents’ home. Relinquishing a child, losing a daughter, allowed my birthmother to manifest the life she wanted for me.
As a biracial transracial adoptee I experience layers of loss: loss of confident racial identity, loss of physical and cultural mirrors in my community and loss of biological family. The more I encounter of the world and the deeper I understand these intertwined identities the more I realize the SAME set of fears, doubts and struggles are at the core of each loss; the same set of false core beliefs.
False core beliefs are untrue limiting beliefs, often developed during childhood, that structure our sense of self. Once we create these false beliefs it’s hard to let them go and our mind keeps a tally of experiences that reinforce those false beliefs and therefore justify our faulty belief system ( shout out to counseling for this insight).
As we move through life, painful and traumatic experiences cause us to form false core beliefs that are triggered directly or indirectly. Pay special attention not to the words of the spoken messages below but to the implicit message that is communicated and shown in italics. Though each comment is about a different experience (Biracial Identity, Transracial Adoptee, Adoptee) they each serve as a trigger for the painful metamessage of You’re not enough.
Biracial:
“You’re not really black. You could never understand what that means.” You’re not black enough.
“I could never date someone who’s not white.” You’re not white enough.
Adoptee:
“So why did your mom give you up?” You’re not wanted enough.
“You don’t know what it’s like to have a real sister.” Your family bond is not legitimate enough.
“Why do you care about being adopted, it’s no big deal.” Your feelings aren’t valid enough.
Transracial Adoptee:
“I want to adopt children of color to teach my own children how to love people who look different.” You’re not worthy enough on your own.
“You don’t have to adopt a biracial child, if you just wait God will give you the desires of your heart.” You’re not desired enough.
Every one of those aforementioned lines communicates the same devastating false truth. You’re not enough. Not enough as a biracial person, not enough as an adoptee, not enough as a transracial adoptee. Though each person didn’t explicitly or maliciously say You’re not enough it is what I hear between the lines. The metamessage You’re not enough is compounded by my intersectional identity, solidified through repetition, like water that slowly but surely carves a rut out of stone.
So how can you use this knowledge to benefit the transracial adoptee in your life?
SEE the complexity of transracial identity. Be aware of their multifaceted struggle. When people feel seen they feel known, and when they feel known they feel loved. The greatest gift you can give a transracial adoptee is the recognition of their life as valid and worthy of exploration, conversation and understanding.
Learn to recognize triggers. I gave some examples of triggers that stir up the false belief You’re not enough in response to each of my identities. For those that love me, recognizing when triggers are creating a domino effect of false beliefs in my head is so important in stopping a negative mental cycle. I find once I’m able to track a trigger back to a false core belief born out of a traumatic experience, I feel more in control and able to rewire that false core belief into a true one.
Help carve new ruts in the stone. Much of the mental work I’m doing to heal involves carving new ruts in my brain, allowing new true core beliefs to exist, rewiring my worldview. Find small everyday ways to reinforce true core beliefs for transracial adoptees.
Respect personal space. Give transracial adoptees in your life the space to be tired, confused and speechless. This kind of emotional labor is exhausting. Sometimes sitting in the weariness is all you can do.
Don’t run away from the battle, run towards it. Many parents who have adopted transracially ask me how they prevent the grief, loss and pain of this complex experience. Personally, I don’t think it is preventable. You don’t get OVER adoption. You learn to live with it, around it, through it. Rather than focus your energy on preventing likely inevitable, very real and valid emotions in your children, focus your energy on ways to proactively create and reinforce positive true core beliefs. Develop in them early the tools to recognize the root of such false core beliefs and the resources to dismantle them.