Often clients will tell me that they just want to be normal. I suppose the flippant answer might be it is normal to want to be normal. However, it set me thinking about ‘being normal’. Normal is typically defined as behaviour conforming to a standard they are not abnormal. So perhaps normal behaviour is only seen if it is abnormal.
Typically what people are asking is in fact: is my behaviour the norm compared to that of others. So typically we decide of a person is normal through norms that any society might have. Yet often these social boundaries are unspoken. Normality is often a relative concept, intrinsically defined by contextual and cultural elements.
Some people are asking if they are sane, yet some perfectly healthy people don’t feel right, they hold down jobs, they are stressed at work and often they have care duties to attend to – is this normal?
In reality there is no normal, it is a comparison of how you measure to others standards. Perhaps we should be setting our own normal so that we can answer the question for ourselves. It could be based on our personal experience good or bad; happy and sad. Then if these seem different, perhaps they are more extreme or abnormal from your perspective. Each one of us has a unique autobiography, normality isn’t something you can catch in a butterfly net it’s a moment as it moves up and down as you live your life.
You will know if your behaviour is normal for you and can get help if you need it
Am I normal? – Yes for any given value of normal!