Functioning

Alina Bittner

by Alina Bittner

Story

It’s not my fault right?” I asked my mom after I broke her vase. She only sighed at me. ”You need to learn consequences of your actions dear.” I looked at the floor where the shards of the vase lay. ”You’re right..” I started cleaning up the shards. I took every single piece with tenderness in my hand so as not to damage it any more. My mother watched me with a smile on her face. ”I’ll fix them” I was a stupid young kid. Not everything can be repaired, but unfortunately I learned that too late in life. I always tried to ‘fix’ everything even though I knew there would come a time when it wouldn’t work any more. Even when I messed up with friendships, I tried to fix it, even if it meant I had to change. That didn’t bother me at the time, I just didn’t want to be alone in this world. Even though it wasn’t my fault, I ‘fixed’ it. Slowly and slowly I started to exercise more like a machine than a human, just to not be alone, just to have people around me. I thought that if I don’t function any more, the people around me will leave me. How naive.

But at some point it didn’t work any more. At some point my machine-like behaviour began to give up. Slowly and surely, my body and mind began to give up. I couldn’t and didn’t want to believe it. I was afraid of losing everything because I was no longer functioning and no longer responding. I kept trying, but my thoughts wouldn’t allow it, they stopped me from continuing. Then it started. In the beginning only a few people started to leave me, but over time it became more, and soon I was left alone. What I was afraid of had caught up with me. My body and mind have been encumbered with years of functioning and ‘fixing’. I forgot to look at myself. I had forgotten to ‘fix’ myself. To take care of me, I had forgotten to do what was actually one of the most important tasks in life. That was the first time in years that I saw myself for the first time, really saw myself. My body was broken from years of ‘functioning’, so no one would leave me. My mind was darkened by the words that won’t leave me alone. At first, it was the words of others, later they were my own. ”It’s not my fault, right?” I asked myself as i sat alone in my room, with a damaged mind and body. But i knew deep down, that it was my fault.


You don’t have to function for people to be around you. There will always be people by your side, you just have to let them get to you. It’s important to know that it’s not worth changing just to keep people around. I learned that day how important it is to stay true to yourself. How important it is to take care of yourself. You should always put yourself first.

Don’t forget that you are just as important as they are.



© Alina Bittner 2023-05-26

Genres
Spirituality
Moods
Emotional, Hoffnungsvoll