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10 Simple steps to Being a Functional Person
10 Simple Steps to Being a Functional Person
1. Groom better. Shower when you are dirty. Brush your teeth morning and night. Keep your hair neat and face clean. Take pride in yourself.
2. Be careful of what you eat. Don't ruin your body because you crave a fleeting comfort. Don't poison your body because you don't care. Your lack of will is a self fulfilling prophecy. The food doesn't love you. You don't hate yourself.
3. Be mindful of what you put on your body. Dawn only what is you. Never sell your self-confidence to the latest trend. You are not going to be always in the scene. Make the scene about you. Dyed, pierced, and covered in leather; it's you. Don't listen to the mirror or your mother because you are neither.
4. Move. This is the hardest step of all. You are stronger than the iron grip of your sheets. The bed is only for sex and sleep. Anything else and you are just hiding. You don't need to hide from your life. The world will only react to your presence, not your intention. On your feet. Face the existence.
5. Stop hiding from people. Recognize that not everyone will hurt you. The man in your bed is kind, not cruel. The woman you work with doesn't care that it took you two hours to gather the strength to shower. She won't even notice. The delivery man didn't look at your mismatched socks, the checkout lady doesn't care that you forgot to say goodbye. Your family will always love you. Nobody is better off when you're not there.
6. Accept that sometimes you just can't sleep. That is okay. Everyone feels the walls close in at three a.m. when everything else is quiet. It is normal for the darkness to feel heavy. The wolf scratching at the door would scare anyone. Anyone would be afraid of its smell, the heavy scent of disappointment. The teeth cutting into your flesh like every bitter memory. The paws holding you down like the disparate need to explain why it's not your mother's fault that you cry at family gatherings. The eyes that see right through your dismissive "fine" that you claim to be and right to the tar like anger under your skin. God forbid you cut yourself and some of the tar leaks out and stains the bed sheets.
7. Limit the time you send away from the world. An hour in a book. Maybe one story. A few minutes of music. Maybe scroll through a app or two. TV with the husband. Before you know it it's time for bed. When you curse yourself for not doing anything real, do so quietly so as not to wake anyone. Afterwards move on with your life and sleep knowing that not every day is perfect. Sometimes the to-do list collects dust because it is really hard to care about the dishes when your insides feel like they are rotting. That's okay too.
8. Stay as positive as you can. Do not lie to yourself. Accept that good things can happen to you. The world will likely not end today. While some days are better than than others even bad days have good moments in them.
9. Protect yourself. Don't push yourself to the limit. Don't demand perfection. You are the only you that you will get. Do not let yourself be broken or bruised. You are worth keeping whole and sane. Never let anyone hurt your body or your mind.
10. Keep going.
