Highly Functional

All this time I thought that I was just really dysfunctional.

No one else sees life as I do. I've spent my life trying to either get someone else to see it like me or change the way I see it so that I could be like other people and fit in.

Well I've had a little help seeing it, but now I accept that no one is ever going to get me, no one is ever going to completely understand. Maybe everyone has this realization and knows this already about themselves, but I come late to such things--I've held my dreams tight. I bet everyone else figured this out at about eighth grade, but I've had a difficult time accepting this. I so want, need, like and still hope to be understood.

But, there is freedom in acceptance.

Once I brought myself to it, much of the frustration I am so accustomed to lifted right off of me, it was such a great feeling. No one is going to get me, and it's okay. I can quit trying so hard to bridge the gap between myself and everyone else, quit trying to explain everything, quit leaving half of myself out of the conversation because it's the half that's not going to be understood.

Plus, here's another great realization that came along with it...

Maybe--and I had a little help seeing this too--just maybe, I am not all that dysfunctional. Maybe the way I see life and love and God and relationships and the way I wrestle with truth is NOT the bane of my existence--maybe it's the key to my expression. Maybe I'm not only NOT dysfunctional, maybe I'm highly-functional. Maybe I'm like an idiot savant, crazy talented and gifted in this one teeny, tiny niche, and a bumbler in every other area. Ah, what a thought.

Maybe artists and accomplished people have put in the work to really explore and know this part of themselves, the part that makes them different, not fit in, weird. Maybe they develop it and express it and maybe that is what makes their uniqueness shine.

Because of my strong Christian upbringing, and my actual dysfunction, I have not done a lot of this work. I have not gone there or searched and worked there, nor have I let that part of me be released. I didn’t want to be that different from everyone else. I wanted to be the best Christian so I forced myself to get on-board with all of that, self-editing and withholding to stay between the lines and get that A+ grade.

And, maybe I too easily pick up on the vibe of what other people are thinking or understanding, then curb myself to get along with them and make them feel better. I know I do this. Of course I gravitate toward people with whom I don’t have to do this so much, then I deal with the rest so that I can fit in a little. I only allow myself out in small doses where I am understood, and the rest of me? Not even I know her, she stays shut up and put away.

Well, the light is shining on her now, and I need to figure out how to get her up and moving—she’s all paralyzed from being locked in the basement in the dark all these years. But, she’s the valuable one now, she’s the one who holds the keys to my insight and I need to hear from her.

I remember when I was a child, before I started to change to fit in, I had a little pretend friend. She used to wear a red, hooded cloak and swing with me on the swingset. I put her away when I was told she couldn't possibly exist....

See? No one is going to understand me--I'm a freak-show. But, maybe, just maybe, I'm a highly-functioning freak-show. Maybe I'm seeing colors (and people), that you cannot see.