Nobody Told Me I'd Be the Crazy One

Thirty-four years ago,
I was born into a war-zone.
And when I got adopted
and left this war-zone
six and a half years later,
my nervous system never got the memo
and remained hypervigilant.
I remained incapable of trusting anyone.

Nobody told me I'd be the crazy one.

It was in elementary school that
I became ashamed of the fact
that I was the only kid to cry in class
and to do so over tiny things.

Nobody told me I'd be the crazy one.

Throughout my childhood I felt
perpetually misunderstood;
I felt like an alien and
always wondered what it would be like
to be the consciousness
behind someone else's eyes.
It bugged me that I could not explore
the world as anyone other than me.

Nobody told me I'd be the crazy one.

I grew up believing that
if anything bad happened,
it'd be my fault,
and anything that went right
would have nothing to do with me.

Nobody told me I'd be the crazy one.

It was in middle school that I developed
the version of OCD that involved
pulling my hair out.
I would know what I was doing
but I guess the self-soothing effect
outweighed my desire to stop.

Nobody told me I'd be the crazy one.

It was in high school I learned
that I was afraid of 'yes' or 'no' questions,
and would sometimes say,
"It doesn't matter,"
in response.

Nobody told me I'd be the crazy one.

I'm in my thirties now and
have only just recently
discovered that two fears
are running my life.
I fear I am unlovable and
I am afraid...
afraid of unconditional love...
and these fears left me stranded
within an illusion.

Nobody told me I'd be the crazy one.

I've been perpetually seeking
the "conditions" I must meet
in order for another being to love me.
I've learned that I am 
capable of mistaking
my inner child's survival
instincts for intuition
and that this error in judgment
can ruin relationships.

Nobody told me I'd be the crazy one.

I blew up my life recently.
My inner child took the wheel
and began sabotaging everything
without the inner parent noticing.
Maybe the inner parent wasn't even there.

No body told me I'd be the crazy one.

Looking back,
I can see the pattern
so clearly.
I have habitually hyper-fixated on
my mistakes and would imprison myself
behind thicker and thicker walls of
guilt and shame.
I've learned,
at long last, that
when we over-identify with
our falls, we will
never learn to fly.

Guilt and shame are
unnecessary chains...
even though we tend to 
believe that we
are imprisoning ourselves
for the sake of
those we have wronged.
I learned that
shame and guilt
will never be
what makes me a good person.