On the Outside of Dysfunction

Breaking What Once Felt Normal

For a long time, I was part of the dysfunction.

The chaos didn’t feel toxic it felt normal.

That’s the thing about it
when you’re raised in it, you don’t question it.
You survive it. You adapt to it. You become part of it.

You learn to read the room before you even understand yourself.
You shrink where needed. You react how you were taught.
You call it “family,” “love,” “just the way things are.”

And i didn’t even realise what it’s costing you.

Until one day you do.

Now I’m on the outside looking in,
and if I’m honest, it’s a strange, uncomfortable place to be.

Because once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

The patterns.
The emotional cycles.
The way pain gets passed around like its normal behaviour.

Lately, life has been putting situation after situation in front of me,
almost like it’s asking,

“Do you see it now?”

And I do.

I see how the cycle of dysfunction doesn’t just stop on its own.
That’s what generational trauma does
it repeats, reshapes, and gets handed down.

From one person,
to the next,
to the next.

Same wounds.
Same behaviours.
Different faces.

And the hardest part?

Watching people stay in it.
Defend it.
Normalize it.

While im over here choosing something different.

Setting boundaries.
Speaking up.
Refusing to play my role in a story that was never meant to heal me.

And suddenly

You’re the problem.

You’re “too much.”
You’ve “changed.”
You’re “difficult.”

But what really happened?

I stopped accepting what was breaking me.

And that makes people uncomfortable
especially those who benefit from staying the same.

So no it’s not easy being on the outside.

It’s lonely at times.
It messes with your head.
It makes you question yourself more than I’d like to admit.

But it’s also where the truth lives.

It’s where clarity begins.
It’s where awareness replaces survival mode.
It’s where the cycle finally has a chance to break.

And maybe that’s the role i have always meant to play
not to carry the dysfunction…
but to end it.

Even if it costs me comfort.
Even if it costs me connection.
Even if it means standing alone for a while.

Because there is a different kind of belonging waiting for me
one that doesn’t require me to abandon myself.

And I don’t know about you…
but I’d rather stand alone in truth
than stay somewhere I have to lose myself just to belong.