Breakdown

February 21, 2016

{ DYSFUNCTION } : An abnormality or impairment, or a deviation from accepted social behavior. a problem or fault in a part of the body. The inability to sustain. 

{ BREAKDOWN } :  The act or process of failing to function or continue. The wearing out of, or sudden loss of ability to function efficiently, a collapse. 

I cannot recall exactly when my dysfunction became my function, where the line between real and unreal was erased and I cannot remember my life in any other way than the chaos that is now my mind. For nearly 39 years I have breathed, seen, tasted, felt and known this existence. But I can tell you nothing about it that is concrete or tangible to say that it or I, truly exists. I faintly recall dreams I once had as a little girl, what I thought I would be when I grew up, where and who I might be by now. My dreams changed often, not because I am flighty or undecided in my thoughts but because everything back then fascinated me about life and I seemed to want to do and be everything. A paleontologist, an archaeologist, a scientist, an astronomer,  a psychiatrist, a lawyer, an investigator, an International Public Relations Specialist....the list could go on forever. 

My grandma Sally and my Aunt Sue always told of how I taught myself to read at 3 years old without anyone's help. At the age of 5 when my mother took me to Okinawa for the first time, she said we were at a restaurant waiting in line to order food. There were several of our family members with us and in the midst of the chatter my mother heard me speaking Japanese as fluent and clear as if I had always spoke it. She said that everyone grew quiet as they listened and watched me read the entire menu from the order board, in Japanese. No mistakes, no hesitations, no pictures to show me what the food items might be, just Japanese. I don't know what you call that, when it happens once and only once because I could not do it again no matter how hard my mom pushed me to do it.

I used to tell other kids that my mom and dad were not my real parents, they were aliens just filling in. For whom or until when is not clear but I had a very vivid and active imagination, I think that I still do. I did not fit in with my family at all but I never much minded because I never fit in anywhere so I learned to adapt to my surroundings and carry on. My Aunt Sue was like my pseudo mom, she is 15 years my senior and acts more like my sister than my aunt or a mother, but she has always been there for me. She still tells me how I was the most intelligent child she ever knew, and she is a school teacher so she has had many children to compare me too she says. Bright, curious and unafraid I navigated my world on the front lines never shying away from challenges or things I had not experienced yet. I would try anything once and when I fell down, I always got back up and continued on.

My home life was normal for me, I never questioned the things my parents did or disrespected them by asking them why things were the way they were. I did as I was told, got straight A's, took care of my little sister and at the age of 11 took over household responsibilities like paying bills for my mother. It was my job to get my sister to school on time and to walk her home everyday, clean the house before my mother got home from work at 4:00, make sure homework was done and keep my sister occupied and out of trouble. We were never close, my sister and I and we still aren't. I have spent years trying to form some kind of a genuine relationship with her to no avail and quietly gave up when my dad died in 2014. He used to be the only thing that held her and I together and I guess after he was gone so was the glue between us because we separated ways and are ok with not speaking to or seeing one another even though she lives 15 minutes from me.

Tragedy and trauma are what either unite people with one another, or tear them apart and the same can happen to you inside of yourself. The parts of you will either become strong and unite to make you whole, or they fall their separate ways destroying who you are and who you used to be. When you finally realize and are cognizant of the separation in yourself, this is what I call the breakdown. The collapse of oneself from all that you knew, all that existed in you, and all the parts of you that had to be there in order for you to function. This, is your breakdown and this is where I am now. I am lost, confused, broken, scared, angry, saddened, lonely and I am fighting for my life. 

What makes you fight for yours? Do you know where it is you are heading or even where you come from? Do you know if you are united or separated from yourself? And if you do, how do you know what and where you are at any one moment? Do you know you exist? Are you aware of yourself or what surrounds you? Do you know what is real and what is true? And do you know with certainty that your real is the same as the real that actually is?  I thought I did, living in all of my dysfunction and the world I had created in my mind but the truth is, that I know nothing except that I am broken, body, mind, spirit and self. I am in a breakdown that will not allow me any mercy. I have to choose to ride it out no matter how painful, or choose to succumb to the cyclone of confusion that it creates, sucking me in like a tornado, my existence torn apart in a whipping frenzy of trash and debris. Dying with it as does the wind, leaving nothing in its wake but fragments of what used to be. As broken as I am I still choose to ride it out and live, but i am afraid and I am lonely right now. Not forever, but for now.