In the past seven years, my brother and I have been dialoguing and most often coming to the same point, but from two different directions. But we have always honored and respected each other enough to only speak our truths, even if and when that truth landed in unsettling ways…it seemed that we needed each of our sides in order to fully embrace and know the lay of the land.
Our conversations often times are batting words and definitions around, trying to understand where the other is coming from. For while we were raised in the same house, we came out differently, but the same. We both walked forth dysfunctional, yet displayed it in two different ways.
I have been telling him for many many years, that he is Authentically Dysfunctional, and it meant to me that he was bravely owning all of his abuse and how it left him…and how he has done extremely remarkable in undoing the damage by learning to function in reality.
What he heard was he could never not be Dysfunctional. What I had implied was that he was openly dysfunctional and recovering his functions.
For what I believe is the heart or root cause of the term Dysfunctional, is that you are unable to function correctly in a situation, that you do odd things instead of what nature would do.
Our Function as a human being, no longer functions correctly; our systems begin to operate backwards.
We are drawn to people who hurt us, instead of being repelled away.
The complexities of living backwards is mountainous; our whole lives are lived blindly hurting ourselves and blaming others.
We can't function on our own.
We need others to change so we can be okay.
We have lost the connection inside of us to move away.
In abuse, when someone overpowers us, especially someone we love and trust, we become powerless to them. We are then left minus the switch to move away.
To function means you have your power back. You can move towards and away from people and behaviors that don't feel okay to you…You become unfrozen.
Without this switch, you are dysfunctional. You can't function and be the one to move. You are left in a place without legs.
The Function of a victim is to be powerless, unable to move, frozen without choices. Many folks get stuck in this position after abuse, especially if the abuser is your caretaker. We simply are left without a choice, we can't move, so we grow up in the position of being powerless.
Being powerless and being unable to move is the function of a victim, and a victim we will remain, until we can move.
While my whole family of origin sees me as being cold bitter, angry and stuck, it is actually the complete opposite. I am free and functional for the first time since my father's abuse. I lived as a victim for 4o years, and now in the last 7 have been working to become functioning as a natural human being.
I now have the ability to move away from folks who hurt me, who bring toxic energy…
In order to function again, you first have to see where you are unable to move…where you are a victim, where you haven't moved away from abuse…That is my meaning of being authentically dysfunctional; you have to be real with what is not working in your life.
If you cannot see your self in prison, you can't set your self free.
And I do believe, that it is easier at times to stay prisoner in a life that you know, compared to walking free into one that you don't know.
Just as in the experiment of mice, who were raised in a shock box, one that would emit shocks in order for them to eat…when they were given two choices, a box without shocks and food or one with, they all chose to continue with what they were used to.
I do get that it is easier to continue being shocked than it is to learn a new way of being. It is easier to sit in the jail and be a victim, than it is to walk free.
But the bottom line, is that you and you alone decide to move your switch or to let it be. Once you know, you can't not know…and once you know, you are willingly being a victim, and then, IS that really a victim or are you now an active participant?
Being authentically dysfunctional is admitting you can't function…and in acknowledging you are unable to function, is the first function of becoming functional.
If you can't see where you lost your power, you can't get it back…it remains lost.
Sometimes, it is hard to get your power back from those who took it in the first place, harder still if you believe love is attached. But here is what I know for sure, love will never leave you powerless.
(Dysfunction, equals no power, which then adds up to no love.)
I M Perfect lady 