[Anneinside]

This is a question we all ask ourselves and don't find the answer. A good response to that question is in an article I found on this site. http://psychcentral.com/blog/archive...9/am-i-normal/

[grizmom]

Originally Posted by Anneinside

This is a question we all ask ourselves and don't find the answer. A good response to that question is in an article I found on this site. http://psychcentral.com/blog/archive...9/am-i-normal/

Thanks for sharing...it's an interesting article. I was curious to what the actual definition of normal is, so I looked it up here: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/normal

I think when I say I wish I was normal, I am referring to the third definition they give:

Psychology.
a. approximately average in any psychological trait, as intelligence, personality, or emotional adjustment.

b. free from any mental disorder; sane.

[CDarlyn]

Just a setting on a dryer... nothing to do with people!

[WendyAussie]

I think the line from the blog that said, "Maybe it’s best to think of “normal” as a range of life experiences where we can live the life we want, without significant health or mental health impediments. "

I am a psych patient as well as being a long time sober member of AA. In both realms I have heard people scoff alot at the concept of "normal" - that there is no such thing. But as a person that has life threatening mental illness as well as a life threating addiction (in remission because I do all the 12 step work and have done for 11 years) I disagree.

I think for me in relation to my conditions, "normal" is not wanting to take your own life every single day, month after month and year after year and then acting on it, niot being able to get out of bed, change clothses have a shoer, let alone go to work and all the massive loss that mental illness and for me, long-term mis-prescription can cause. This is simply NOT what the majority of population lives with. The old chestnut that EVERYONE thinks of suicide at least once in their life (which I believe is true) is simply SO irrelevent to a person who has conditions like mine and also, I am sure, many people on this site.

And as to addiction, I don't think it normal to drink a poison/or take a poison continually until your life is shattered and then until you die (I've seen so many in my family and also friends and of course people in AA). It's not what the population do, even if there is substance abuse, it is usually not in the form od abuse of the fully blown alcoholic that I am.

Of course because I have worked so hard on these conditions for so long, and have ultimately found a psychiatrist who prescribes me a proper meds mix I HAVE gained a semblence of "normailty" and greater functionality and I don't think about suicide every second of every day, and I don't plan or do the "act". And I don't drink alcohol, so I don't do the clearly "abnormal" behaviours of an 18 year blackout drunk.

But I still can't work (having had three qualification and a successful 14 years career), I am now on the Disability Support Pension which is very hard to get so I present to the Goverment as a person with terrible debilitating illness) I lost my home due to all this, I am profoundly isolated due to my illnesses and am not in contact with family and friends bar one friend, I won't have the chance to have kids because of all the years chewed up by all of this and I haven't been in a proper relationship for 15 years. There are many more losses along those lines.

Many people without mental illness or addiction are lacking in these areas too, but few have all of them, and to the same extent. If I looked a Bell Curve of all this disfunctions and various factors in life, I would definitely be on the flat end of the Bell Curve in terms of fucntionality amd life losses.

So I do think it is appropriate to use the term "normal" in terms of thr majority of people, who, of course have many things wrong, like fighting with a partner or other serious illness illnesses or problems at work. but not the life shattering nature of addiction and mental illness. I find it patronising when people say to me, but everybody has problems, no life is perfect. Of course that is true, but we are dealing with extremes here - not the middle of that Bell Curve where most people live.

This is an angry post I know, so I apologise, but it is clearly a "hot button" issue for me.

[Anneinside]

I'm glad you felt okay to vent! You have a very strong sense of what normal is.

"Normal" is another word like healed, cured, recovered or aberrant that depends on a baseline for comparison. We are unique individuals that engage in behavior that is deemed normal or abnormal on the basis of a consensus. The consensus may change.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/men...2/METHOD=print

http://www.psychologytoday.com/print/34046

I have had many labels over the years from trauma-induced hallucinations at the sight of octagon-shaped red capsules to apathy regarding unruly nose hairs. I have come to realize labels may help my treaters but mean little to me. What I want to know is how does the information produced affect my life and how do I best use what was discovered to my best benefit.

[WendyAussie]

TheByzantine, both articles were very interesting. Also interesting in the first article that several variables were considered, but not variables that I think are critical to consider in diagnoses and treatment: the potential for subjective decision making on behalf of psychiatrists and their potential skewed view of the patient and all the potential illnesses, and the and competency or lack thereof of the clinicians. I think to leave out those inlfuences leaves the picture incomplete. (Certainly in my experience of psychiatry)

And the other variable, which is relevent to both articles is the massive global influence of BIG PHARMA on the diagnosing and prescribing by psychiatrists, and the influence in mental health outcomes.

[kadesgirl09]

great articles! i feel a little more normal than I did before I read those

[Lisa Michelle]

I do tend to agree with Wendy. I think normal does exist, and is just a word for how the majority of people are and should be.
I think it does help to believe in normal. It helps you to recognise when you're ill. If you're crying every day, can't get out of bed, if you scream at your family, if you want to die..... once you realise it's not normal, you can sort of realise that you don't HAVE to be that way, and seek help.

I was told by someone once that "it doesn't matter if you don't eat that much, you look great. and i often go a whole day without eating".... I took that to mean that I wasn't ill (I was younger then), and I thought well if he doesn't eat either then I'm not sick am I (I was anorexic). But now I can realise that he didn't eat because he was lazy or not hungry, but I didn't eat because although I was extremely thin, I was obessed with losing weight, and THAT's not normal. I think that's when normal is important - I realised that starving myself wasn't normal, that it meant I was ill, and that I deserved to get help.

[thinker22]

I agree with Wendy. It's not normal to wish you could have the respite of death day after day. And I used to before my current meds combo. In that respect, not being normal is terrible to bear. In other areas, I would rather not be normal, like intelligence, consciousness, having a strong conscience, empathy, hope, optimism, etc. I'm not boasting that I have all those things. I just aspire to be more on the right side of the bell curve in those aspects. So, psychologically I'm definitely not normal in a negative sense, but normal isn't ALWAYS better than abnormal.

[Dave255]

When I think of normal I think back to how I felt before I became bipolar and wasn't on any medication. The average how I would feel, back then I would naturally have days and stretchs where I felt better or worse.

[IndigoRose]

Originally Posted by CDarlyn

Just a setting on a dryer... nothing to do with people!

My Rabbi tells me that all the time.