By Karleigh N’diaye
“But you got a good family, so why does it matter?”
“I mean… at least somebody wanted you.”
I’ve heard some version of these words more times than I can count. And I know I’m not the only adoptee who has.
I don’t want to speak for every person who has experienced adoption, foster care, guardianship, or being separated from their biological family. Our stories are different. Our feelings about those stories are different, too. Mine is especially complicated because I didn’t go through what most people would consider the “traditional” adoption process. I went through guardianship and, eventually, adult adoption.
Of course I’m thankful for my adoptive parents. But somewhere in the back of my mind, being given up still planted questions in me that I didn’t know how to answer. Was I not worth keeping?
And once a question like that gets planted in a child, it doesn’t always stay in childhood. Mine didn’t. It showed up in my self-esteem. It showed up in breakdowns nobody understood. It showed up in moments where I could walk into a room looking completely confident and still feel unworthy. And eventually, it started showing up in my relationships.
Sometimes I would hide what I really felt because maybe if I didn’t complain, didn’t get upset, didn’t say what bothered me, didn’t need too much, then there would be no reason to leave. Other times, I would do the opposite. I’d push. I’d question. I’d need reassurance. I’d almost test the relationship just to make sure you really meant it when you said you weren’t going anywhere.
I didn’t have language for any of this when I was younger. I just knew how to adjust. And I had gotten really good at adjusting.
So, hey. My name is Karleigh N’diaye, and this is part of my story.
I’m biracial, Black and white, and even my racial identity became another layer of figuring out where I belonged. Until I was around twelve years old, I grew up in a predominantly white household. After that, I became part of a predominantly Black family.
When you’ve experienced people leaving, moving from one environment to another, or feeling like you weren’t worth keeping, identity can become more than figuring out who you are. Sometimes you’re trying to figure out what’s wrong with you. Why wasn’t I enough? Why wasn’t I worth fighting for? Why wasn’t I worth holding onto?
So you adjust again. Because somewhere along the way, being easy to love started feeling safer than simply being loved.
And when you’ve done that long enough, you don’t necessarily recognize it as hiding anymore. It just feels like you. You learn how to smile through it. You learn how to achieve through it. You learn how to walk into rooms and make people laugh through it. You learn how to become independent, successful, strong, confident and not in a healthy way.
You learn how to wear the mask.
The thing about a mask is that people can only compliment what they can see. And mine became beautiful.
People could see strength. They could see resilience. They could see confidence and accomplishments and a girl who somehow “made it.” And those things are real. That’s important. The mask isn’t necessarily a lie. It’s just not the whole story.
Because underneath everything people could see were parts of me I didn’t know what to do with. The questions, the confusion, the fear of being left again, the need to feel wanted, the constant adjusting, and the parts of myself I was still trying to understand.
From the outside, the mask can be beautiful. People walk by it, admire it, compliment it, and sometimes even wish they had it. But they don’t have to wear it. They get to admire the strength without feeling the weight.
But when you get close enough, you can see the cracks. Some are small enough to hide. Some have been covered so many times that even I forget they’re there. Then there are the ones that run deeper. The ones where one disappointment, one unanswered question, one feeling of rejection can touch something that happened years ago and suddenly I’m not responding only to what’s happening now. I’m responding to every time I’ve felt that feeling before.
That’s the part people don’t always see.
That’s the crack in my mask I’m finally learning to look at.
Because for years I thought healing meant making the mask stronger. Fix the cracks. Cover the ugly parts. Keep achieving. Keep smiling. Keep being the Karleigh everybody knows how to love. But now I’m starting to wonder if healing isn’t about fixing the mask at all. Maybe it’s about finally feeling safe enough to take it off. But I think one of the hardest parts about taking off the mask is realizing which parts of you are actually the mask.
The adjusting feels like you. The overthinking feels like you. Staying quiet feels like you. Trying to figure out what everybody else is thinking before you’ve even had the chance to figure out what you think feels normal. You wear the mask so much that eventually the line between who you are and who you learned to become just to feel safe starts getting blurry.
And that’s scary!
Taking the mask off, for me, hasn’t been this dramatic moment where I wake up one day completely healed and suddenly stopped overthinking. I wish. It has been much more uncomfortable than that. It’s been learning to catch myself. Learning to ask, Is this actually how I feel, or is this fear talking? Am I staying quiet because I genuinely don’t have anything to say, or am I staying quiet because I’m scared of what could happen if I say it? Am I responding to this person, or am I responding to everyone who has made me feel this way before? I still mess up. And whew. Sometimes I don’t like the answer. But at least now I’m asking the question.
I think that’s what people sometimes misunderstand about healing. We make it sound like healing means the things that hurt you disappear. I don’t think that’s always true. I still overthink sometimes. I still have moments where rejection feels bigger than it probably should and staying quiet feels easier than explaining what I’m feeling.
The difference is I’m learning to recognize it.
I’m learning which parts are Karleigh and which parts are the mask.
Because I don’t think taking the mask off means you’ll never reach for it again. Sometimes you will. Sometimes that old version of you that knows how to protect herself will show up before you even realize she’s there. The important part is being able to recognize her. To know why she’s there. To understand what she’s trying to protect. And eventually, to remind her that she doesn’t have to protect you the same way anymore.
For me, taking the mask off has required finding something stronger than the voices that made me believe I needed it in the first place. And for me, that has been my relationship with Christ.
My faith hasn’t erased my story. It hasn’t magically answered every question I have about my biological family. It hasn’t made every insecurity disappear or made me immune to rejection. But it has given me somewhere to return when my mind starts trying to convince me that another person’s actions determine something about my worth.
But the problem with needing people to prove your worth is that people change. Relationships change. Titles end. Accomplishments become old news. Seasons close. And if your identity is attached to all of those things, every change starts feeling like you’re losing a piece of yourself.
My relationship with Christ has been teaching me that I was never supposed to build my identity on things that could leave. I am enough. I am worthy. I am chosen. And I’m still learning how to believe those things without needing somebody else to confirm them first.
Because being chosen by God doesn’t mean I will always feel chosen by people. Being worthy doesn’t mean everybody will recognize my worth. Knowing my purpose doesn’t mean I will never have another insecure day. Faith doesn’t mean I never struggle. For me, it means I have something to come back to when I do.
It means when that little voice starts asking, What if they leave?, I can remind myself that I cannot control whether everybody stays. When my mind starts asking, What are they thinking about me?, I can remind myself that I cannot control somebody else’s thoughts. When I start wondering, Was I too much or not enough?, I can stop and remember that my worth isn’t something another person gets to vote on.
And that’s been huge for me: recognizing what I can control.
I can control how I show up. I can control whether I’m honest. I can control whether I communicate what I’m feeling instead of expecting somebody to figure it out. I can control whether I keep shrinking myself to fit into spaces I’ve already outgrown.
But I cannot control whether somebody chooses me.
And maybe that’s one of the biggest things the mask was trying to help me control all along.
But what happens when you stop living your life trying to be chosen? What happens when you realize you already are? For me, I think that’s where I’m beginning to meet myself again.
Not the Karleigh who has the right answer. Not the Karleigh who walks into the room confident. Not the Karleigh with the accomplishments, titles, positions, pictures, or things that make people say they’re proud of me. I love those parts of myself, and I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished. But those things aren’t what make me worthy. I’m talking about the girl underneath all of that. Who was I before I thought I had to prove something? Who am I when nobody needs anything from me? Who am I when there isn’t a room to impress, a person to please, a title attached to my name, or somebody whose opinion I’m trying to predict?
I’m still figuring her out.
But I know one thing about her now.
She’s enough.
Not because everybody stayed. Not because everybody chose her. Not because she did everything right. Not because she became successful enough to make what happened to her look inspirational. She’s enough because she always was.
And maybe that’s what I wish I could go back and tell that 12-year-old girl who was trying so hard to figure out why she was the one who wasn’t kept. I don’t think I would give her some long inspirational speech. I don’t think she needed that. I think I would just sit beside her and tell her something nobody could’ve convinced her of back then: What happened to you does not get to decide what you’re worth. There was never something you needed to become to make yourself worth keeping. And you don’t have to spend the rest of your life proving that somebody should stay.
I’m 23 now, and I won’t pretend I’ve mastered that. I haven’t. There are still parts of my mask I’m discovering. There are still moments when I realize something I thought was just “my personality” might actually be something I learned because it helped me survive. There are still cracks I’m learning not to immediately cover.
But I think that’s the beauty of finally recognizing the mask.
Once you know it’s there, you get a choice.
And slowly, you can remember who you were before you believed you had to become somebody else to be loved.
Maybe taking the mask off isn’t about becoming a brand new person. Maybe it’s about coming home to the person who was underneath it the entire time.
Karleigh N’diaye is a purpose awakener, speaker, and founder of Karleigh Speaks. She is currently pursuing her Master of Public Administration at North Carolina Central University and uses her voice to inspire others to embrace their purpose and walk confidently in who they are. To learn more or book Karleigh, visit www.KarleighSpeaks.com or follow @karleighspeaks on Instagram.