Are you Normal?
Would you call yourself Normal?
What does Normal even mean?
When someone says, "...a Normal person?" What are they saying? And what do they mean?
Now that I've gotten the silly questions out of the way, I'd say quite comfortably that I likely don't fit the broader idea of Normal as shared by many people in the day-by-day working world. Within perhaps a more localized category of Normality, some might say I am, but that only complicates the idea of Normality further. I have, for as long as I can remember, struggled to be this strange and elusive Normal. For some, it seems quite natural. Too natural, even. For others, they cannot ever seem to make the mark, and the social outcomes of missing that mark can vary depending on your audience and circumstances. For myself, those outcomes were less than pleasing. Because of this, I have some particularly pointed opinions on this topic.
When I was a little noodle, I often struggled to perform many of the basic actions which seemed to have a set standard of performance: how I'd hold my fork, how I'd write letters and words, how I'd speak and conduct myself in social settings, and let's not forget school and its abysmal system of categorization and judgement. I was naturally a bit slower to pick up on some of these more nuanced and abstract tasks, and I was constantly mocked and corrected heavily for doing something as simple as writing letters from the bottom up as opposed to the top down. After all, the worksheets given to me clearly indicated that there was a specific way to introduce a symbol to a page via some writing utensil. Laid before me was a standard which I failed time and time again to fulfill. It wasn't "proper" or "correct" of me to write in the way which felt most natural. After all, have you seen the letter 'e' written from the bottom up as opposed to the top down? Clearly this is absolutely illegible. No one would EVER be able to read such a thing. In fact, stop reading, grab a pen and paper, and write the lowercase 'e' twice: once from the top, once from the bottom. Atrocious, isn't it? My parents and siblings would routinely mock me for my handwriting; though, they never did much to help other than to show me the "proper" way of doing so, as if that made any difference. I didn't yet fully understand at the time what it was which made something so seemingly minute so difficult to wrap my head around.
These troubles naturally began where many neurodivergent struggles begin: school. What an odd way to be forced to spend one's time. Don't get me wrong; the strengths of a well-funded, well-acclimated public education are undeniable, but my personal experience and history does not reflect these visions at all. Imagine now... You've come into existence, into memory. You have sensations, thoughts, emotions: all of the things which constitute being alive. You look beneath you, and you see plants, dirt, rocks, and bugs. You look around you, and you see people, animals, trees, and buildings. You look above you, and you see swirling clouds, bright blue skies, the sun, the moon, and the endless stars which compose the heavens. You look within you, and you find yet more to see: wonders beyond that of even the world around you. What is all of this? I MUST know! I MUST understand! This is the mind I was born into, and this is likely similar to the mind you were born into as well. These are the ideal conditions for learning. But! Now your parents, the authorities of your life, come up to you with this sheet of paper adorned with numbers and symbols upon it and tell you, "You must make this number a '100'. You must make this letter an 'A'. This is very important! In fact, this is now the primary objective of your life from now, for years to come. Failure to meet the desired outcome of this objective thrust upon you, which may or may not be designed with your mode of thinking / learning in mind, is to fail at the very life you were born into." You'd not be mistaken by me for staring blankly and wondering what this is all about.
I was a natural at getting bad grades growing up. From first grade onward, I would look to my older sisters with somber jealousy for their abilities to make these strange numbers and letters become what the teachers and parents desired. They seemed to get it just fine, and I was expected to get it all the same. Unsurprisingly, I didn't get it. I was more concerned with playing video games, making art, looking at bugs, and watching the weather: things which obviously have no place in the working world of producing desirable numbers. The clash among my passions, addictions, and the desired outcomes from others would naturally lead to a lifelong conflict which I am still resolving, even as I write. I obviously still learned, which is the primary purpose of school, but the looming stress of ensuring that I learned the right things, in the right ways, in the right timeframes forever kept me from truly being fully engaged with the actual learning. Learning and Grades are two very different things. Ask anyone who's cheated on a test or an exam. Ask any of the children today who are using AI, much to the dismay of learning, to do their work. After all, school is about getting the A and the 100, is it not? If you don't get the desired outcome, you will likely be punished by your teacher and / or your parents. You'll be told that without that GPA, you won't be able to get into a good college, not be able to get a good job, not be able to make lots of money, and so on... I don't support the use of AI in any such instance, but I don't exactly blame the children for doing what they feel will quickly get this arbitrary outcome out of their hair.
This cycle of struggling at school and at home was what I called Normal for the longest time. I would wake early to the alarm, sometimes rudely by my sister, go to school, try my best to learn, get bullied frequently, come home, struggle at homework, get bullied at home, sleep, repeat. One to two days a week we'd go to church to participate in yet another well of standards and judgement tossed into the fray of my already chaotic internal life. I find it odd looking back at the many troublesome parts of my life which I had, by no real fault of my own, slotted in as Normal, including the less savory things. Indeed, one part of my Normal was a simple truth: your parents and family could hurt you. They were simply allowed to do that without consequence. Physical, psychological, emotional? It's fine. They do that because they Love you. This pain is a Good thing. I only ever recall questioning this once, which was immediately shot down. With nowhere else to turn, I could only pull inward and away. I could only quietly accept that this was simply the way things were. Daring to step on the pride and ego of my parents, daring to make them appear remotely wrong in their actions, only reflected consequences to me. There was no turning to teachers, therapists, or counselors for help. Any such action done in Truth would only merit more pain.
I was in and out of therapy ever since I was a little noodle. I've had lifelong severe anxiety and panic attacks ever since I was a few years old. The world and its inhabitants have always been quite frightening to me. Therapy was and usually has been, unfortunately, ineffective. My mother often put down the therapist I saw when I was a kid, who I would just play board games with. You could argue she was poor at her job, but I'd argue I was even poorer at being a patient. As a little noodle, I didn't even know why I was there or what I was supposed to be doing. I was not informed of the purpose or process of therapy, so it was just a strange place I regularly went to spend time with some stranger. Of course, had my therapist actually known of my circumstances, she would naturally have to challenge my family, which could have meant yet further consequence to me for daring to speak such unspeakable things. So it went in my many years growing up. I'd keep to myself and poorly process the growing and festering issues within me through my stories and art, provided I wasn't just burying it deep within. Much of the things I did to deal with my mental wellbeing were maladaptive. However, this was still simply my Normal. This was just the way things were, and that was that. Growing up rural and with few friends meant that I had few frames of reference outside of my own home to judge how healthy my family may or may not have been. Isolation further bred my gradual slipping into my most disturbed eras.
We're now going to dig out of that tunnel of the rabbit hole to regroup with the topic at hand, but I wanted to make it clear just how much can be internalized as Normal. Being trapped in such a place with no ability to challenge the Normal at play makes finding a new Normal even harder, and it makes gaining genuine connections just as difficult. There has been, lurking behind this strange Normal, a ghost I will now speak of: Nature. Indeed, all Beings and all people have a Nature to them. I have my own Nature, and my Nature is what my family knew as not being Normal. My Nature as an autistic person (and especially a Therian, but I will do a whole other blog on that facet of me) naturally put me at a disadvantage in the systems I was born into. The world did not assume that I truly existed, and it's here that I will point out my largest issue with Normal and how it can be weaponized.
Normal implies a standard: the standard by which Beings, often Humans, should exist. When someone claims to be Normal, they can mean one of a few things, but I've found that often it is a declaration of, "I am within the standard by which others "should" exist and conduct themselves. I have made the cut. I am acceptable. How wonderful of me to be so Normal." To tell someone that they are not Normal, or that how they behave or conduct themselves is not Normal, from such a viewpoint is to imply that they have failed at merely existing. If your Nature falls outside of the realm of Normal, then I regret to inform you that you have failed at existing acceptably. Please do the world a favor and stop being so... you. So it goes, and so it went with me. Up went the wall of masks to survive as myself. Down went with what made me me. I take it plenty of you reading had to do similar.
Fast forward for a moment to 2023. I've just recently moved out and have started to give journaling a shot. I've always struggled with keeping written journals, and it wasn't until after I moved that I managed to get in the groove of writing one. I generally keep one or two journals at any given time. I rapidly began to notice something odd which occurred within my mind as I'd write. Those same chastising voices lingered about in the back of my head with every stroke of my pen, judging and mocking me endlessly. So this would be the legacy of my family? How unfortunate. In time, my handwriting got better, and I became more and more comfortable wielding the pen. I learned to love the strange and unique way in which I would write. This confidence would be what finally snuffed out the flames of unjust judgement in my mind as far as my handwriting was concerned: one of many much-needed victories within. No, my handwriting does not fall within the Normal I was assigned, but that is because it doesn't truly exist in any pure capacity. I did not make the cut of acceptable handwriting to others, but it eventually made the cut on my own paper.
I now find myself in an odd place. It's been a few years since I have moved, and I am slowly shedding the foul stench of Normalcy which has plagued me for my whole life. Memories arise from this newfound perspective: memories of that troubled past. I sometimes can't even begin to imagine that this was where I came from; this was what was Normal to me. It's frightening. I sometimes have conversations with friends about my past, and their reactions are stark indicators to me that what I can describe with a flat face, or even a smile, actually carries weight that I was not aware of. When such things become Normal, their weight is lost. This is obvious to plenty, but for me, it was a reality check that perhaps what I went through is best NOT categorized as Normal. No. These things were not Normal. What a horrid standard of existence that would be. These are no fair standards to live by. Normal is something which must be challenged regularly if it isn't to stagnate and rot everything it contains. I'm still learning this fine skill myself.
So... What is Normal?