What is normal??

'I'm no exception, there's no rule. 
In the end I know you think you don't blend in, but you do.
Don't you know you're just worm food.'

I love these lines taken from the song Worm Food by Ruth Theodore.

I was having a discussion today with a fellow therapist and he said he was often surprised when he would discover that the most confident people sometimes are not quite so secure underneath it all. 

You know the popular kid at school who had lots of friends and was really good at everything. Finding out they were actually as riddled with insecurity as the rest of us was unexpected. He said when he was growing up he never really felt that he fit in anywhere and didn't feel quite normal. 

Funny how everyone is trying so hard to be normal all the time and 'blend in'...what's so great about being normal? Does anyone actually really blend in and feel normal? Is the human condition not that we are all different and 'flawed', or rather 'unique', in some way?

I said, what is normal? Someone who is infallible, in control of their emotions at all times and totally unaffected by other people? Surely such a description of 'normal' functioning would be the same description as that of a sociopath?!

 

Normal

There’s a madness in my soul

An insect buzzing against glass

I want to swat it with books,

Theories, therapy, well meaning

Intentions evolve into insanity

But subjectively it’s pretty

Benign, endearing in fact to some

Emotions nothing more than ego

Vanity, self obsession, immaturity

Love forces us to grow up

And show our true feelings 

Whatever our age

And we keep struggling to hide them

But there is nothing wrong with us

The only problem is everything

Is normal.

Priscilla Sim

Copyright 2006