Upgraded and Unbothered: My Identity Journey

Stories That Shaped My Identity

Early 1960s. Brooklyn, New York. Valentine’s Day. A three-month-old baby girl was adopted.

My adoptive parents made my story a nightly ritual, proudly retelling every aspect of how I came to them, tucking me in with the narrative of my own beginning. They shared so many details: how my grandfather drove his yellow medallion taxicab from the Manhattan adoption agency to our Brooklyn walk-up, how my dad gingerly carried me up three flights of stairs, ensuring each foot was firmly placed before taking the next step.

My adoption homecoming was extolled by three priests, a throng of new family members, and my parents’ closest friends. There was so much excitement — and, I imagine, an overwhelming invasion of space that sent my developing nervous system into a spiral of cries. When my crying wouldn’t stop, my would-be favorite aunt and godmother swept me from my mother’s arms and declared, “That baby is hungry!”

In hindsight, it’s clear that my sensitive nervous system was quite dysregulated. No one understood then how that level of overstimulation would manifest in the years to come. I always felt tremendous love and acceptance — until I learned that not everyone was adopted.

Awareness of Being Different

The awareness of being different was reinforced early, in elementary school and at church. Both were predominantly Black spaces with distinct cultural nuances. My parochial school was largely comprised of Black Americans who had migrated North from the South during the 1950s and ’60s. The church congregation was mostly Caribbean immigrants and first-generation Caribbean Americans — my adoptive parents were first-generation Barbadian (Bajan) Americans. These communities shared the same racial label, but ethnic and cultural differences still managed to draw invisible lines. There weren’t many outright negative interactions, but “different” has a way of making itself known without anyone saying a word.

One occurrence stood out apart from the rest. There was a particular brazen incident with an adult church member that reinforced the importance of knowing that I was always adopted. One Saturday, when I was 11 or 12 years old, I received a letter in the mail. While a bit odd, it didn’t strike any chord of concern. It was rare for me to get mail, unless it was my birthday or a holiday. I was so excited! Upon opening the envelope, I saw a handwritten note, written in blue ink on lined notebook paper. “Dear Adopted Baby,” is how it began. And all I remember. What I do recall is not understanding why someone would begin a letter like that, and not my name. Confused, I brought it to my mother, who in turn showed it to my dad. The next thing I knew, my grandmother, all my aunts, uncles, and cousins suddenly appeared at my house. My family was livid that someone could be so mean-spirited and potentially harmful to me. Thankfully, I did know and felt grateful for their love and support.

Yet, it crept in quietly, and as a young child, those subtle slights festered. I absorbed the message, the belief, that even my own people had rejected me. From that alienating conclusion, a deep distrust took root and grew.

Years later, while chatting on the phone with my mother, she offered a disconcerting revelation. She had read an article in “Ladies’ Home Journal” about the impact of withholding birth family medical history from adoptees. She disclosed that my birth mother was Polynesian. I could hear the quiver in her usually steady voice — so anxious and uncertain that I doubted her accuracy. A few months later, I asked again. Without missing a beat, she replied, “Cambodian.” Apparently, without time to prepare, my adoptive mother couldn’t hold the story consistently. The truth had slipped through twice, in two different versions. Until then, the only information I’d ever been given was that my birth father was from Africa and that my birth mother had died, presumably during childbirth. I had always believed, without correction, that she was Black.

I feel compelled to share that by this time, I had already been married for several years and had two middle-school-aged children. Because I was an adoptee with no birth family history, my pregnancies came with an overwhelming battery of tests to rule out as many genetic abnormalities as possible. I still shake my head when I think about it.

Thirty-plus years into my life, I was learning that my cultural and ethnic identity had been assigned almost entirely by the recognition that my birth father was from Africa. My sense of self was further disrupted.

Decades later, I took a DNA test. Two years ago, I gained access to my original birth certificate. The results of both confirmed what had only ever been hinted at: Birth Mother, Cambodian. Birth Father, Cameroonian/Nigerian.

I was someone new and unfamiliar. And not.

My Journey Between Worlds 

Since I rarely felt like I belonged, I learned to embrace being different. Over time, an ever-emerging protector began to take up space within me. I came to think of her as my Warrior Princess. She shielded me from my sense of abandonment, loss, and confusion. She appeared when I felt vulnerable, when I doubted myself, when I stood outside looking in, when I felt misunderstood or cast out. She was Rage personified. And while she protected me from pain, she also limited my connections — with others and with myself. Reflection has offered a bittersweet pill: I know now that my intrinsic rage was simply a manifestation of the primal wound that no amount of mask-wearing or self-medicating would remedy or hide.

My differences were woven into my story from the very beginning and shaped a deep sense of otherness that followed me everywhere. Somewhere along the way, that patchwork of experiences made me a natural bridge between worlds — and I believed that unique positioning would become my greatest strength.

What I found instead was this: people gravitate toward sameness. I never could. Something in me refused to settle there, even when I ached for the kind of belonging that seemed to come so effortlessly to everyone else.

The sense of being an outsider followed me into new chapters. The culture shock of moving from Brooklyn to the Midwest deepened it. When my spouse and I relocated there with a three-year-old and a three-week-old, the isolation intensified. Seeking connection and purpose, I enrolled in a graduate counseling program, hoping those feelings would diminish. They did — but the relief was temporary. My degree gave me tools to help others; it also distracted me from recognizing the help I needed for myself.

Over time, the cost of being that perpetual bridge became impossible to ignore. Constantly shifting, adapting, never fully rooted in myself — the exhaustion accumulated. I began to question not just where I belonged, but who I was at my core.

The Liberation of Authenticity

The journey toward an authentic identity is rarely clean. For me, it meant coming to understand that my experiences of loss, betrayal, rejection, and grief had shaped my self-perception in ways that no longer served me. What I came to understand slowly and then, like a dam breaking all at once, is that true belonging doesn’t come from fitting into predefined boxes. It emerges when we embrace what is uniquely ours and stand confidently in our truth.

Personal Insights Becoming Shared Wisdom

The path to self-acceptance wasn’t linear. I had moments of clarity throughout my life, but I wasn’t often in a space to fully receive support and insight — at least not steadily.

What finally shifted things? Education. Acceptance. Belonging. Each reinforced a belief I had been circling for years: I held the keys to free the person who had been hiding within.

It would be a glaring oversight not to return to the role that C.A.S.E.’s support group played in my healing. It provided the impetus for me to learn more about adoption and the critical value of adoption-competent care. But what meant the most was something simpler and more profound: I had finally found my tribe.

The foundation of my identity is now based on these three pillars (my 3Gs): Grace, Gratitude, and Goodness. Today, I draw on those experiences of difference and have made it one of my life’s missions to help others who carry similar feelings. That they, too, may find their own upgrade.