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/ Sign In Chat Rooms (10) Home Conditions Quizzes Ask Q&A Drugs Blogs News Research Resources Find Help Community Pro Am I Normal? By John M. Grohol, PsyD Founder & Editor-in-Chief This is a common theme I hear echoed from a lot of people I meet. Am I normal? I cant wait to feel more normal again. Must be nice being so normal The problem is, I dont know what normal is. I suppose for some of the people, they mean without the symptoms of my disorder. That makes sense, especially as some symptoms of some disorders can be pretty severe and debilitating toward living their everyday life. But then I realize that even people without a diagnosed condition still dont often feel normal. We live our lives, we have our stresses, we hate our bosses or the 9-to-5 routine, we get into arguments with our significant others. Is this normal? Some days you dont know why you wake up. Some days you dont know why you go into work. Some days you dont know what the ultimate point of your life is going to be. Is this normal? Every other waking moment, youre thinking of food or eating. Every hour you think of sex. Every day you imagine what normal must feel like. Is this normal? You sing along with the radio. You talk on your cell phone while driving (even

knowing that you shouldnt). You hate your parents. You cant wait to visit them during the next holiday, though, because you havent seen them for awhile. And then you feel guilty for thinking, I hate my parents. Is this normal? The point is simple there is no normal. There is a homeostasis we try and maintain in our constantly-changing environment. None of us live a normal life because theres no such thing. The grass may be greener in your neighbors yard, but that may be because their pumping their kids college funds into yard maintenance and fertilizer. You never know other peoples lives you only know what they choose to show you. That couple you met at other because they get mean they never fight? light-hearted barbs at the dinner party the other night were so nice to each along well and genuinely like each other. But does that Of course not. And does that mean the couple that tosses one another at the same party has a worse, more unhealthy

relationship? No, just a different kind of one. And yes, they argue in private too (all couples do at some point its actually a sign of a healthy relationship). Maybe its 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. It still has its ups and downs, it still has moments where we question our own sanity, but its relatively predictable with routines that feel familiar but not necessarily suffocating. Or maybe I still have no idea what normal is So please drop me a note when you find it. Ill be waiting here next to my neighbors extraordinarily green lawn. 40 tweets retweet Return to Everyday Health Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He is an author, researcher and expert in mental health online, and has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues -- as well as the intersection of technology and human behavior -- since 1992. Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and is a founding board member and treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. Links to This Article Knowing Normal One Black Cloud (3/29/2010) Most Tweeted Articles by Psychology Experts: MrTweet (3/30/2010) normal. Sonyas World (4/20/2010) Normal | Mental Health Camp (4/20/2010) mental health camp news (4/27/2010)

mental health camp news (4/27/2010) spa4beauty.net Blog Archive mental health camp news (5/7/2010) 42 Comments to Am I Normal? The most recent comments page is shown, ordered by older comments first. Comments: Older Comments 1 2 3 4 SanityNow 1:44 am on April 5th, 2010 I dont know whats normal. I just know what my heart tells me isnt healthy. I have a fiance who probably isnt normal. She sleeps her days away.is nearly paralyzed with indecision, hates her body, worries about fading beauty, cries herself to sleep, creates her own set of job and life challenges by her behaviors and mounting unaccountability, drinks almost daily, takes prescription pills to sleep and to stay calm, blames her every challenge on othersmostly mebeca use I wont cooperate now that I recognize how Ive helped her do all this to herself in our time together. Her behavior goes back many years before meeting me. And I dont live a lifestyle thats condusive to this at all. So why did I choose to write about this here? Because, its as good a place as any to answer such a tough, but basic, question. Whats normal? I believe its normal to love, to feel joy, pain, fear, pleasure and not mute those feelings all the time. Its normal to not want those we care about to sufferso many of us go to great lengths to try to ease that painto give of ourselves those things they seem to be missing. Its normal to feel massive, crushing guilt and sour dissapointment when we fail at living for someone else. Its normal to feel the shame that comes with that failure. Because surely, if I love this person enough, theyll get it and come to a point of healing..RIGHT? NO. Not unless they determine that for themselves. So again, whats normal? To live, to question, to wonder, to act even when youre not certain at all. To live and let live. To give and give. To do things in the face of knowing nothing better to do. And to get up tomorrowtired.and do it all over again. For me.Normal is all about hope. So, I hope Im normal. I hope being normal is a good thing. I hope normal presents me the chance to see the good things in life I want to see. Reply grammamjj 9:13 am on April 5th, 2010 Great article!! I love it!! My husband is always comparing our life to others, and saying things like our life isnt normal, or 1 out of 10 people would do things this way or that way, or theyd agree with me. Im always telling him that he cant really know that because he doesnt know how others truely live, or how others think, but he tells me I am crazy, that its just the way society is. I guess it appears that I am not so crazy afterall, am I? Go figure!! Reply grammamjj 9:21 am on April 5th, 2010

I believe that everyone is living their lives the way that is normal for them. For instance: I grew up in a life that was normal to me at the time, and as I knew it, but now in my life,I can see that compared to what I do now and the way that I live now, that was not normal! Reply Minx 7:50 pm on April 5th, 2010 Yes, grammamjj, I totally agree with you on how you thought in your early years that everything was as it should have been, but growing older or up, whatever you want to call it, there were always reasons and causes for how you thought, felt about yourself, esteem issues that maybe were not truly yours, but pput on you by others. id. family etc. I finally learned to live for myself just the way I was and am and guess what, I have more caring friends and other family members who never brought their opinions up until much later, but they all saw situation as not so perfect. Trust yourself or get into a group or therapy or just live your own damn life the way you feel good about and you will find yourself much more content and proud of who you really are. Reply TB 3:34 pm on April 7th, 2010 What is the authors advice for those of us who *do* have a disorder? A range of life experiences where we can live the life we want, without significant health or mental health impediments is simply not possible for all of us. Predictability does not exist for someone like me. It is so hard not to compare myself to my peers who I perceive to be so much happier, more successful and confident than I am. If only I could achieve that TB PS To the editor: their should be theyre Reply Regina Jumalon 1:09 pm on April 12th, 2010 try also reading why normal isnt healthy by Bowen F. White M.D just for additional scoop in the article. reg pls change their to theyre, readers might be confused Reply rainiac 1:26 pm on April 13th, 2010 And by normal we mean balanced! I use it all the time. Reply Sonyas World 5:30 pm on April 20th, 2010

I actually take a bit of offense to this concept. My wife is very sick with a severe mental illness. Her experience, and likewise mine as her husband, has been extremely abnormal, and so in contrast, there is such a thing as normalcy. I think you can only talk about normal not existing when youre dealing with a normal population, which is to say a flawed group of people. But when youre talking about major mental illness, in which people are more broken than flawed, youre in a whole new world. Ive expanded upon my thoughts in much more depth at my blog, you can get to it through this link. http://bit.ly/dfJlx4 While I admire the attempt to make mostly-well people remember that its not worth longing for a perfect life that doesnt exist, it ignores the experience of extremely unwell people who have suffered tremendously. Reply Kat 10:29 pm on April 20th, 2010 I actually think that may sound). suffering and we what is normal everyone who has commented here is right (as contradictory as On one hand, we all have issues, we have all experienced all have flaws, and whether or not these experiences fall into doesnt matter because they are a part of life. To some extent.

But if this were completely true then psychologists and mental health professionals wouldnt exist, because our job revolves around treating people with mental illnesses and making them more normal. So obviously while a certain degree of suffering is normal, there is a point at which it becomes a serious problem that needs treatment, and Im glad that point has been raised too. Its great to see so much thought has been given to such an important issue Reply JAMINGA 3:25 am on July 1st, 2010 Whos to say whats normal? What I know for sure is this: everybody has their bag of sh%#everybody has different abilities to handle the items in their bag, so small to me may be overwhelming to othershowever there are those in denial and they seem to set the bar for normal in a way that makes us question ourselves. Beware of this person who tells u their life us perfect..their bag of sh%#* is far larger than any of ours will ever be!! Reply Immortal 7:02 am on October 6th, 2011 I also get the question a lot What is normal? It is indeed an interesting question, but can be answered based on past principles, but we also have to take into account the new world that brought in new things that are normal. Normal depends on the group we are approaching as in every group there are things that are normal that are not normal to another group. If we zoom further out however, normal can be pinned to the average mind and the thoughts of such a mind. Average mind being derived from the majority of the population. I would exclude the African Countries and other countries that have tribes where the local

people have still traditions of their own and have not yet been integrated properly into the modern world / rest of the world. Lets ignore these for now. Now, a normal person would consist of having a middle class job, maybe none or a well paid job, but still has a lifestyle where she/ he can afford a living. Will have an orderly live with a daily routine that this person adheres to. He / she will have the intention to marry and maybe have a child or two, maybe more. Will belong to some kind of religion or be an atheist. Might or might not do sport on a regular basis to tone the body. Have a healthy appetite, maybe more then he she should or less than average. This is all still normal. Has thoughts about other ladies or men and may fantasize about sex a lot or other weird fetishes. This is also still perfectly normal to the human mind, but normally gets suppressed. Having thoughts of all strange things are also normal. The abnormality comes when some of the thoughts become actual desires and needs, whereas some strange thoughts are still normal, even when they become a desire. Some people think of killing someone, then they might get the desire, but that is where it stays. This is already a slight abnormality, but could also be seen as something normal that is taboo and hence gets suppressed. However, when it becomes a need, then we can talk about abnormal. As a normal person you feel your average up and down and if you suffer under depression you have probably been helped with drugs and it works for you. Possible. Normal has many guidelines and their mind fits quite well into the system. Now that we have discussed normal, lets pull everything out of proportion The human mind is vast and many things were suppressed in the olden days and were forbidden and were totally abnormal then the modern age came and many exploded as what once was abnormal, taboo, forbidden, was now allowed suddenly people saw how much they have in common / shared with others and what they felt was abnormal suddenly became normal, even denial / self-denial is normal Normal is moving with the age / era / decade we live in. The mind is capable of so much and should be seen as normal as it is the human mind which is nature and nature is normal in all its abnormalities. But nature makes no difference, it is only the human mind that creates these border lines, which not even humans can pin down. But if nature is normal and treats everything as normal, then why cant we. Arent we part of nature too? Does nature not treat its abnormalities as normal too? So, who are we to judge what is normal and what not? If it does not fit into our way of understanding or into the way of the masses, we see it as abnormal just because it does not fit into our small minds of which we only use such a small percentage, does not mean that it is abnormal it just says that we dont understand and have actually no idea of what is normal and what not. If we would use our full capacity, everything would be normal and then we would probably be not here anymore as we would either have destroyed each other or just seize to exist as human beings who knows. Ultimately it is us, our minds and the lives we create that create abnormalities with all the emotions that control us . Maybe. I am not here to assume, only discuss. That is what humans do, they research, discuss and give their opinion, hence, even when we are not specialised researchers or medicals, we still have a right to an opinion. Reply Susanna 1:31 am on October 29th, 2011

I think its different to be normal and balance. To be different, to be special different, its individuality, and that complexity. To be normal is equilibrium Reply Comments: Older Comments 1 2 3 Join the Conversation! Post a Comment: Name/Pseudonym: (Required, will be published) Email: (Required, but will not be published) Website: (Optional) Related Posts

to be common, and to be normal is is suffering. Someway all of us are difference is in expression, not about into our own individuality,

Other posts by John M. Grohol, PsyD (RSS Feed) Can You Take Someone to the ER for Mental Health Help? What NOT to Say to Someone With Panic Disorder The Homeless Highway Gentleman Need to Form a New Habit? 66 Days Back to College: 5 Survival Tips Proven Strategies to Thrive Despite Christmas Think of Yourself In The Third Person Do You Dread To Go Home? How to Make an Adept, Sincere Apology Best of Our Blogs: December 6, 2011 Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 3 Apr 2010 Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved. APA Reference Grohol, J. (2010). Am I Normal?. Psych Central. Retrieved on December 27, 2011, from http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/03/29/am-i-normal/ Blog Index World of Psychology Addiction Aging

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