Normal: A Learned Behavior
What is normal? The dictionary tells us it's a standard, or conforming thereto. Whose standard do you choose? We have Average Joe On The Street. He grew up in a normal family, went to school, maybe got an associate's degree and moved on to some job that he does because it makes him money and he pursues his hobbies on the weekend. He has a wife he loves and two children. Sometimes they fight, but they always make up afterward and it's never anything big.
We have Little Girl With Troubled Childhood. She spent her young life learning that people, especially boys, are not to be trusted. She learns that she must take care of herself and her sister because who else is going to do it? There's nobody else here most of the time. She gets older and starts looking for a father figure and is taken advantage of, which she expects, because boys are not to be trusted. She spends less and less time around people. Eventually, she finds herself a small apartment where it's safe and she can hide. She has a pet she devotes all her time and love to, because animals love you no matter what. Except for the ever-present panic lying just underneath the surface, life is okay because now she is safe.
Average Joe sees people as just people. Potential friends, potential jerks he'll never see again.
Troubled Girl sees people as potential hurt.
Both of these are normal. But one normal is causing significant stress to the person who lives it, so Troubled Girls is eventually seen by a doctor who gives her pills that bring her into Average Joe's normal.
So now she is lost because nothing is what is was anymore. She is free to be free from worry, but instead follows it around chasing its tail because it's all she's known. It's familiar. What is this new place? Who does it make her?
I think everyone with a disorder goes through this at some point during the medication process. You come to a crossroads. Is it The Man trying to make you conform to some National Standard and turn you into a good little worker bee? Or is it your Therapist trying to make you feel better the only way they know how? Take the pills, or try to deal without? Substitute the pills with something cheaper you can get on the streets anyway, or just down them like you're supposed to? Who are you? What place is this? If you've always lived in Bizarro World, how do you learn how to live in the realm of Normal.
But I think I've finally realized something. "Normal" is a moot point. It is different for everyone. You take a picture through your eyes that's upside-down. It's not really a real picture. It's the light that reflects off the surface of an object, and your brain flips it right-side up and creates a picture based on that light. Everything you see is an illusion. It's what your brain created for you to "see" based on the light that bounced off it into your eyes. Everything in the world could be sickly-purple, but we see black and gray and blue and green because our brain is telling us one thing is different for another. You can never be sure that anybody sees anything the same as you.
It's the same with Normal. I am free to create my own Normal, so long as it doesn't scare the crap out of me or make me miserable. The entire world is in your head. What does your world look like?
We have Little Girl With Troubled Childhood. She spent her young life learning that people, especially boys, are not to be trusted. She learns that she must take care of herself and her sister because who else is going to do it? There's nobody else here most of the time. She gets older and starts looking for a father figure and is taken advantage of, which she expects, because boys are not to be trusted. She spends less and less time around people. Eventually, she finds herself a small apartment where it's safe and she can hide. She has a pet she devotes all her time and love to, because animals love you no matter what. Except for the ever-present panic lying just underneath the surface, life is okay because now she is safe.
Average Joe sees people as just people. Potential friends, potential jerks he'll never see again.
Troubled Girl sees people as potential hurt.
Both of these are normal. But one normal is causing significant stress to the person who lives it, so Troubled Girls is eventually seen by a doctor who gives her pills that bring her into Average Joe's normal.
So now she is lost because nothing is what is was anymore. She is free to be free from worry, but instead follows it around chasing its tail because it's all she's known. It's familiar. What is this new place? Who does it make her?
I think everyone with a disorder goes through this at some point during the medication process. You come to a crossroads. Is it The Man trying to make you conform to some National Standard and turn you into a good little worker bee? Or is it your Therapist trying to make you feel better the only way they know how? Take the pills, or try to deal without? Substitute the pills with something cheaper you can get on the streets anyway, or just down them like you're supposed to? Who are you? What place is this? If you've always lived in Bizarro World, how do you learn how to live in the realm of Normal.
But I think I've finally realized something. "Normal" is a moot point. It is different for everyone. You take a picture through your eyes that's upside-down. It's not really a real picture. It's the light that reflects off the surface of an object, and your brain flips it right-side up and creates a picture based on that light. Everything you see is an illusion. It's what your brain created for you to "see" based on the light that bounced off it into your eyes. Everything in the world could be sickly-purple, but we see black and gray and blue and green because our brain is telling us one thing is different for another. You can never be sure that anybody sees anything the same as you.
It's the same with Normal. I am free to create my own Normal, so long as it doesn't scare the crap out of me or make me miserable. The entire world is in your head. What does your world look like?