You call it dysfunctional
Dysfunctional behavior.
That’s the name you give it, but do you really know what it is?
You make the diagnosis, give me exemption from classes at school or give me a new home.
You say you want to help me, to remove my “unsettling” behaviour, my dysfunctional behavior.
You watch me cut myself.
I make ugly gashes and wounds in my delicate youthful skin. You watch the blood running and the scars appearing.
You think that I am ruining myself; that it has, I have to, stop.
Do you sense the turmoil inside of me?
Do you hear the thoughts in my head, telling me I’m not good enough?
That it would have been better if I had never been born?
Do you see me when I’m quiet and cold?
As I take all the blows and punches which come my way?
Are you there with me when the insults thunder at me?
When they tell me how ugly I am.
What you call dysfunctional, I call pain!
A pain inside of me, far worse than any I give myself for the world to see.
This pain inside subsides when I’m dysfunctional.
You watch as I overeat or not eat at all.
You watch when I exercise too much.
You see my body suffering.
You see my skeleton frame as my clothes hanging on me or,
when I eat too much, and my body bulges out my clothes.
You think that I am going to die!
You think I have to pull myself together.
You call it dysfunctional.
Can you sense my longing?
Can you recognise my wanting, for someone, who wants me?
Someone who cares?
Can you hear the voices which tell me I’m not worth anything?
Is it you that holds me tight when I run and hide in fear?
Are you there when I try to wake my Mum so my Dad can’t beat her unconscious?
Is it you that stands between my drunk parents stopping them from injurying each other?
Do you watch over my Mum so she doesn’t kill herself?
What you call dysfunctional, I call craving.
A craving so strong it’s painful.
A craving to protect my parents.
A craving for real love.
Food consoles me. When I eat it and when I throw it up.
This cycle of comfort, punishment and reward is what keeps me together.
The craving gets less when I’m dysfunctional!
You listen to the sexual overtones in my conversations.
You notice my sexualised behaviour.
You observe as I abuse myself and let others abuse me.
You watch me destroy my body and with it, my soul.
You call it dysfunctional.
Can you feel my heartache?
Do you see me crying every day when I’m alone?
Do you enfold me and comfort me when I no longer want to live?
When the grief is so much it makes me deaf, makes me blind, makes me mute.
When my Mum runs around naked in her faraway world,
Are you there?
Do you shield me from the laugh of the neighbours. From it all?
When my Dad tells me he’ll die soon.
Are you there?
Do you hold my hand and sew the strings of my heart together again?
What you call dysfunctional, I call sorrow.
A sorrow that chokes my throat and it’s hard to breath.
A sorrow for lost years, lost friends and lost opportunities.
A sorrow which ebbs with attention from others, any attention, whatever form it takes.
I comfort myself!
Don’t call me dysfunctional!
I’m trying to survive growing up!
Help me understand instead,
My needs and how to meet them, in good ways.
They must exist!
I just don’t know about them and I don’t have the strength to find them alone.
The dysfunctional is dysfunctional, but it has function!