"My Story" - Sarah Patstone

How would you describe your adoption? 

Very good. I was loved, safe and provided for. I was adopted as a baby and grew up in a loving and stable home. I always knew I was adopted, but I didn’t really understand what it meant or how it might affect me. Looking back, there were gaps in what I understood about myself, especially around identity, heritage, and where I felt I belonged. My adoption was safe and supportive, but there were still parts of it that I had to make sense of later in life.

Where are you in your adoption journey today?

At peace. I understand much more about how adoption has influenced my identity, relationships, and the way I respond to things. I’ve spent the last few years looking at myself honestly and working through patterns that didn’t make sense before. I feel clearer in who I am and more steady in how I move through life. I now use my experience, along with the work I’ve done, to support other adoptees, which feels important to me, it’s heart-led work that I hold with care.

My journey to feeling like I am enough was...

... not something I was aware of for quite a long time. I didn’t grow up thinking I wasn’t enough, I didn't know what that looked like. But I can see now that a lot of my choices and behaviors came from not really understanding who I was or what I needed and possibly even the 'untruth' of not being enough in the subconscious. That showed up in relationships mainly. I recognized when things didn’t feel good, but I carried on anyway, until the bitter and at times brutal end. There was something lacking, an emptiness that had me believing something externally was needed, even if I couldn’t quite define what that was. Things began to shift when I started to understand more about myself and where some of those patterns came from, the beliefs and the fear that lead to self-abandonment and self-sabotage. Awareness meant I could begin to make different choices. I started to recognize when I was acting in ways that didn’t reflect who I really was, and that gave me the opportunity to change. A big part of feeling like I am enough has been learning to trust myself. That includes understanding what I need, making decisions that support me, and not constantly looking for reassurance from others. It has also meant accepting that I won’t always get things right, and that doesn’t take anything away from my worth. For a long time, I thought this was just who I was. I saw it as my personality, when in reality it was patterns. Understanding that has been a significant shift. Looking back, what I can see now is a little girl who needed to know that she hadn’t done anything wrong, and nobody knew that was something she needed to be told.