Being Normal

     Normal: conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected. (I Googled this definition.)

     The idea of normal and what I should be to be "normal" has haunted me for practically my entire life since I reached adolescence, and especially since the onset of my OCD and panic symptoms. After the onset of symptoms, I felt like I was no longer normal. (Normal people don't have intrusive thoughts.) Then again, when my symptoms resurfaced, and they were so severe that I had to seek treatment, I was hit hard with the realization that I wasn't normal. (Normal people don't have OCD. Even my OCD isn't the normal OCD that I learned about.) Even recently, since I've been in therapy, I've found myself relapsed to a panicked state of existence because I wondered if I (or aspects of my behavior, personality, or anything about myself) was normal. I felt even worse about myself because I didn't fit the definition of normal.
     When you can't be something, it seems like you want to be the forbidden something more than you want anything else. I felt like I would never be normal after I was diagnosed. I wanted to be normal more than I wanted to be anything else in the world. I caught myself monitoring my behavior, my thought patterns, everything in an effort to appear as normal as possible. (Never mind the fact that I'm a writer with a sleeve of tattoos and purple hair, which would make it seem that the "normal" ship sailed without me a long time ago.)
     There is one problem with being normal, though. Normal is a subjective idea. No one idea of normal will ever be able to fit every single person in the world. Normal, in the eyes of society, is conforming to the set of ideas that the majority of people have and behaving in an the way that everyone else behaves. (To fit the rural, East TN definition of "normal" that I grew up with, I would have to be an Evangelical Christian, Baptist most likely. I would have a more conventional career in the works like that of a teacher, nurse, lawyer, or a social worker. I'd be a University of Tennessee and a Titans fan. I definitely wouldn't have purple hair. I tried being normal. I gave up.) Normal changes based on where you're from, where you choose to live, the beliefs that you have. Normal changes from culture to culture, state to state, and even family to family.
     I called a crisis center while I was panicking, and I had a chat with a therapist that worked there. He pointed out that holding myself to the idea of normal wasn't a good goal to have because normal is so subjective. (As a psychology major I knew that, but I wasn't able to be very logical at that moment because anxiety isn't exactly logical or rational.) I realized that I want to eventually get back to MY normal not what everybody else thought normal was supposed to be.
     MY normal is different from everyone else's normal. Everyone's normal is different from everyone else's normal. When I talk about getting back to MY normal I mean getting back to the days when I didn't have panic attacks and wasn't so riddled with anxiety that I couldn't eat; the days when I worked on my book for hours and got so lost in the story that I forgot everything else; the days when I talked to myself and acted out dialogue between the characters I'm writing about; the days when I daydreamed about the day my book gets turned into a movie and maybe, just maybe, I get to go on the Ellen Show. (I've accepted that OCD is just a new part of my normal, and that's alright, just like having Cerebral Palsy is part of my normal, too.) That's MY normal, and I know that sounds crazy or weird or maybe even silly to other people. That's okay, though, because I know their normal is different from my normal. Somebody else's normal might be a 12-hour shift in a hospital, with a significant other, 2.5 kids, and a dog waiting for them in a home with a white picket fence. That's perfectly fine, but that doesn't describe MY normal.
      My normal is one type of normal. My OCD might be a nontraditional type, but it's part of MY normal. Life with mental illness doesn't always fit with what society or even our friends and family tell us that normal is supposed to be. That is okay.
     I'll end with this: "Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly."- Morticia Adams. Normal is different for everyone. Instead of focusing on one idea that someone else thinks is normal, focus on YOUR normal. Don't let someone make you feel that, just because you might be struggling with mental illness as part of your normal, your normal is not good enough or "normal" enough.