Normal
I don’t remember how old I was the first time I googled “how to get a lobotomy.” I do know that I was little, young enough that I’d heard the word and knew that it affected the brain but had no idea of what it actually meant.
Come to think of it, I probably looked it up on Yahoo, the first place I went for answers on the Internet as well as the first place where I had an email address. I don’t remember if Wikipedia was a thing back then, or exactly where I got the information that made me shove that idea out of my head. But what made it come in the first place remained, and remains to this day: a deep desire to be normal.
A desire I remembered this week when I was shopping for a new journal and came across the word many times, all in a positive connotation.
My best friend from college liked to say that “normal is just a setting on a washing machine,” but she was also someone who I got close with after he defended me when I walked away from the dinner table and someone commented that I needed to be on more meds. In other words, he already knew there was something there, and I tried as best as I could to hide it. Remarks like the one he defended me from haunt me and I tend to remember them long after, mulling over my every behavior and thinking of what I could have done differently.
I think my desire to be normal stemmed from the way my OCD was explained to me - that I thought differently than other people, and things could be harder because I had to battle thoughts in my head when other people didn’t have to. I instantly wanted to be like the people who didn’t have to worry about such things, and even though my mom was quick to reassure me that “everyone’s got something,” I still felt like things would be so much better if I was normal.
I constructed a picture in my mind of a normal person. I imagined that their life would be so easy, not having to worry about anything or be afraid of anything. I imagined they would have an easy time with everything I found hard, from trying new foods and things in general to making friends. I imagined the perfect life, and when I compared myself to what I imagined, I was certainly lacking.
Or, rather, I had too much. My head was constantly filled with obsessive thoughts that would only go away if I did specific things. It felt like my every move had to be choreographed to avoid triggering the thoughts that truly scared me, and even when I did my rituals perfectly, the thoughts would return, reinforced, and I would look strange to family and onlookers.
When I pictured the mind of a normal person, I pictured emptiness. So much room to grow and explore, not constrained by the complex web of thoughts I always seemed to be mired in. There was no limit to what a normal person could do, unconfined by fear, unrestrained by patterns of the past.
Since I believed myself unable to live a normal life, I instead turned to my stories. I wrote all kinds of stories about all kinds of people doing things I was afraid of with confidence and facing their fears.
It took me years to realize that so many of my characters live with mental illness in one form or another. Like many writers, I was writing what I know, and my lived experience colored what I was able to write as well as what I wanted to write. I wanted to see someone like me be normal. I wanted someone like me to be able to be fearless and bold, confident and brave, able to take charge of their life in a way I felt unable to.
I saw myself as the opposite of normal for a while. What did that mean, though? Abnormal, or “Abby Normal” like in “Young Frankenstein?” Or was the opposite of normal the words I used to hear about myself like “weird,” “odd,” “strange,” and worst, “crazy?” I internalized so many childhood insults that I believed that I was all of these things, and with no examples of people like me who had achieved success in their lives, I thought I wouldn’t be able to either.
Years after I first heard the word “abnormal” in reference to my brain, I heard “neurodivergent.” I like this word far better, as it gets to the fact that it’s my brain that’s different, and “divergent” reminds me of the poem about the two paths in the wood, and although I may not be on the typical (or neurotypical) path, I can be on a path that works for me.
Even now, I struggle with self-acceptance. I second-guess myself when socializing, expressing my interests, and doing anything else I’ve gotten negative feedback about in the past. I take the criticism of others - and myself - very seriously, and even now, I still see a failure to be normal as a failure in general.
For me, the word conveys a high level of self-control and the ability to blend in with others. Since high school, I’ve had a better ability to “pass” as neurotypical except in certain situations when specific things trigger me. For example, I once started crying in a restaurant when I realized I had eaten a not-insignificant quantity of meat that, as a vegetarian, would be strange to my system and might make me throw up. Most of the time, I am able to make my way through life without revealing my mental illness to others inadvertently, and since it makes things easier for me, I like to keep it that way.
At the same time, though, I’ve been reconsidering the idea of always seeming normal. With this book, and the advocacy I’ve tried to do with my friends, colleagues, and others in my life, I have begun to realize that if people don’t know there are neurodivergent people among them, they might feel even more isolated. Being open as a person living with a mental illness can help others seek help when they need it or make them feel less ashamed that they’ve done so.
I only really started to realize this when my best friend in college pulled out a bottle of pills at dinner and when someone asked, he said they were for mental health. He took one and then returned to the conversation like nothing at all had happened, as if his behavior was normal. Without making a big deal of it, he made it normal, and he also gave me the courage to speak out when I had problems later.
I still believe, like I did when I was a child, that my life is not going to be entirely normal, as I would picture it. There will be a lot I won’t do or experience, and that is a combination of my choice and taking the easiest path through an anxious life. But by speaking out about the abnormality, weirdness, oddity, or any other word for neurodivergence, I can help make those discussions more normal. People like me can be seen as normal if it’s not strange to talk about things like medication, negative thoughts, compulsions, or other things in our heads.
Ellie, a writer new to the Chicago area, was diagnosed with OCD at age 3. She hopes to educate others about her condition and end the stigma against mental illness.
