Why Being Just Okay or Average Can Feel Like Death to an Adoptee or Why Your Child May Not Be Doing Well in School.

I did something new today: I used a Wet Vac. I went on YouTube and watched a video, plugged the thing in, and started to clean out the dirty fountain water.

I was so proud of myself. I had learned a new skill.

I don’t always approach learning with unbounded excitement. I feel more like a door that wants to shut. What if failure comes into the room? Better not to try than to mess up.

So the Wet Vac thing was a semi-big deal. I had pushed myself, gone out of my comfort zone.

When I was a kid, along with being told I was adopted, I was told I was special. Special means different. Special means better. Unless of course someone teases you about taking the special bus to school and then special means you are less than, but in my case special was used as a compliment. “You are our special girl.”

Barf.

The reason I wrote “barf” is because being told you are special is like someone carrying you around by the throat with their hands. Yes, you are not alone, but the price is high.

I got in a foul mood as I was cleaning the fountain, and when I stopped to ask myself why I was suddenly so angry, I realized I wasn’t feeling “special.” Just figuring out the Wet Vac wasn’t good enough. I didn’t know if I was doing a good job. I was making a mess. Maybe I was even making things worse instead of better! What if I failed at cleaning the fountain?

I realized, deep in my guts, my core belief was that I mess everything up. I saw a pattern: when tackling something, I work really, really hard to do a good job, but as soon as it looks like I am not going to do the best job in the world, I often go to the other side of effort and think, well, fuck it, who cares, it’s all crap, and break something by mistake or do something so I can see I failed. This way, my external world gets to match my internal world.

When the world tells you you are special but you live the confusion of knowing the person who created you didn’t think you were worth keeping (this is how the brain often interprets relinquishment, no matter what stories you were told), it can be a struggle to exist as someone who is considered average by him or herself or others. Average can feel so dangerous, so close to not being helpful or worthy or special, and this could mean soon you will be relinquished yet again, by your parents, your friends, your school. Your hairdresser.

I wish there was a special school for people like me that 1. taught small skills every day so there was a constant challenge to my fear of trying new things, of failing. Since I have a brain that is distracted by thinking about my first mother even when I have no idea this is going on in my mind, I would also need a teacher who understood how trauma affects the brain and would help me feel challenged in a healthy way, not in a I-am-drowning way.

And 2. a school that taught the glory of average, of being over doing. Of this is your life, what do you want to make of what. What flavor of ice cream do you like? What kind of clothes do you like to wear? What do you think that you are afraid to say? We would learn meditation, perhaps. We could run a race and cross the finish line not first, not last, and be taught how to feel really good about crossing the line, instead of getting our sense of self-worth from a gold medal or our sense of self-hatred from the knowledge that no one was slower than we were on that day.

I think it would be helpful for parents to think of their adopted child as a glass that is 3/4 full. The child is more likely than not carrying the belief that they can never be good enough, and in this, they are lost in the forest of their life.

It’s like we are arrows shot mightily with no target in sight. What is our purpose? What are we supposed to be doing? That means it doesn’t take much stress, for example, for the cup to runneth over. Even as an adult, I cry easily, am easily overwhelmed, and it’s easy for me to feel bad about these things. I believe I should be stronger. I should be whatever, but the fact is that I am a nervous system that has been dysregulated from day one, and this means I am a train already rocking on its tracks; I am already a glass on the verge of spilling.

I need special attention. Just saying this costs me something because I feel like I am saying I am a burden. Not only do I want a place at the table, but I want someone to help me be there.

Admitting that is so dangerous! What if I am too much for you!

I need to feel I am not too much.

I need to feel my needs are as important as your needs.

I need calm.

I need to be rocked.

I need to know that I am lovable, okay, acceptable, “keepable” even if I do a mediocre job cleaning a fountain.

I need to know that it’s enough to show up each day as myself and to try, but trying for the sake of having the full experience of what it’s like to be in a body in the world, not trying because I’m terrified you will leave me if I am not amazing, if I do not make everything better, if I’m not a star in the sky, but just another daisy in a field already full of flowers.

The thought that I am enough as I am may be one that some day I will feel in my bones, but I’m not there yet. I still think I need to earn my place at the table. I’m still afraid you will leave.

This is an exhausting way of living. It’s like I’m a car dragging a house behind it. I burn a lot of excess energy just getting through the day.

I wish teachers understood adopted kids better.

I wish parents did, too.

I wish adopted kids understood themselves better.

Why?

So we can take a deep, grounding breath and know we are home.