Perceiving Normality

Posted on January 3, 2007 in Bipolar Disorder Genetics Psycho-bunk

I think I am in a morass here, but there’s something to what I have to say nonetheless.

REVISED.

Show me a mood disorder sufferer or a schizophrenic who says that there is no such thing as “normal” — like the person who claims “there are no normal people, just those who haven’t been diagnosed yet” — and I will show you someone who lives in denial. I think the error people make about normal is that they apply an impossible judgement. They look at a static set of characteristics, a list of nots such as “not suicidal, not hallucinating, not confrontative” etc. (No human soul stands still.) When they see these tendencies bleed beyond the population labelled “mentally ill” they conclude that there is no such thing as normal.

And some give themselves license to do whatever they want, damage whatever they please, harass whoever they want, censor what displeases them.

To state that there is no such thing as “normal” is to take upon oneself the mantle of dictator, express that one’s own behavior is unchallengeable. Those who exercise this trick have suffered cruelty at the hands of those who imagine too much that is vile coming from the minds of those who experience alternative mental states. Not so long ago, I signed a petition which called on the State of California to eliminate the term “Abnormal Psychology” from its university curriculum. The feeling that the author held was that the phrase “abnormal behavior” signified that the public was somehow threatened by people like him (and me and possibly you), that we needed to be contained by a psychiatric priesthood. Who would want her or his freedom circumscribed so? The revulsion which many feel about the word “normal” is understandable if it is used as a judgement for segregating the “deranged” from the “sane”. I also feel that distinctions tend to get blurred. Are the terms “normal” and “abnormal”, “sane” and “insane” necessarily the same?

I see it like this. My brain is subject to certain processes which do not afflict most people. Mood swings are not normal. As a sufferer of bipolar disorder, it behooves me to understand what is happening inside my head. I must recognize the process and perceive its fruits. I have a brain which is, in part, abnormal just as I have a pancreas which doesn’t produce insulin like it should. I take medications to correct those contortions off the mean and I have trained myself to see when it might be time to call my psychiatrist to adjust those medications. There is no supposing by me that I do not experience abnormal thoughts and feelings. But I am not powerless over them.

I believe that a mentally ill person can be quite sane. “Look,” she might say to herself. “Those bats are fluttering past. My brain is doing its thing again. I must be cautious.” These words exude responsibility, foresight, wisdom — all the characteristics that comprise soundness of mind. Author Tom Wootton suggests that we bipolars — and the same can be extended to schizophrenics, OCDs, etc. — are the luckiest of people because we must must question our perceptions. How sane is the “normal” person who believes that there are weapons of mass destruction to be found hidden beneath the streets of Bagdhad, who insists that this is true against all proof and all reason? How sane is this person who gets mad when proof is demanded of her?

No saner than the paranoid who insists that the grocery store clerk is an Al Qaeda operative and who will not go against, will not question the surge of delusion.

I know my share of insane sufferers of mood disorders, people who prefer to attack the wellness* in others to avoid focusing on their own illness. I don’t know how they do it because I know I can’t get away living like this for one moment. They live surrounded by abettors — sometimes normal people, often owners of abnormal brains — who keep telling them that there is no such thing as normal. And so, they live in an odd world where they seek to evade accountability. They invent thought crimes and grievances — anything to remain unwell, to avoid taking medication. I have known my share of these and the best approach, when your back is not covered, is simply to walk away.

Such people who will take offense at my statement that my brain is not normal often feel a compulsion, an urge. They must kill the image of me, the means I use, the honesty I entertain. They must extirpate the homonculous they keep of me because they live in fear of restriction. This is understandable if amoral. To reduce the occasion that necessitates this kind of thinking is why we who suffer from mental illness must fight, must educate. But above all else, we must be conscious of our malaise. We must empower ourselves to make good use of our strange being, to act upon the matter of acceptance by being genuine about what ails us and keeping to sane perceptions about its symptoms.

* * * * *

*Wellness is one of those words which have been stretched into ambiguity. Here I mean it to represent the sane mind, where despite the exigencies of illness, an effort is always made to vette out anomalous effects. The saint who speaks of demons in his brain, who actively resists them may suffer from an organic dysfunction but can be counted as sane.