The Negativity of Normal

Yesterday I was trying to think of words beginning with ‘n’ for an acronym (yes, I was going about this the wrong way round) and realised that ‘n’ adjectives are usually negative. By far the most negative, to me, was the word ‘normal’. I use it a lot when I am describing what I am trying to achieve: a ‘normal’ life, to be a ‘normal’ person, to feel ‘normal’. However, I have realised that really I have no desire to be normal at all.

Sometimes, when I am feeling particularly low, when I am being suffocated and crushed by fear, anxiety or hopelessness, I find myself wishing that I was ‘normal’. I just want to stop feeling this way. I want the pain to stop ruling my life. When I use normal in this respect what am I saying; that ‘normal’ means unfeeling? I suppose what I really mean is some kind of stability or neutrality in feelings, but even this does not properly describe what I am after in those moments. I mean that I wish I was like the people I see and know who do not seem to feel this way; the people who can live their day to day lives quite easily and that appear to be reasonably happy with who they are. These people give the impression that they are ‘normal’, but how can I tell if this is all it is: an impression of normality?

When I am not feeling awful, I am often only hoping to give those around me an impression of normalcy. My main aim and desire is to hide my inner anxiety and my unconventional thoughts. I do not want people to see my distress or dis-ease. Often I want to disguise myself in this way in order to be left alone. If people think I am normal (and dull, I often try to appear even duller than I am) then they will not talk to me, they will not question me. What I want, then, is to trick people into believing I am ‘normal’, rather than to actually be that way.

I do not want to be normal.

When I was recently rewriting my CV, I was referring to a template that suggests some do’s and don’ts at the end. It gives this advice: ‘Don’t include anything too unusual in your Hobbies/Interests section. There is a fine line between interesting and whacky.’ My automatically rebellious brain began to search for the most obscure interest I had. I will never be ‘normal’ enough to fit into this conformist mould. I would much rather employ someone who composed operas based on comic books, than someone who had the generic ‘football, golf, hanging out with friends’ as their added touch of personality.

There is no true definition of ‘normal’ when it comes down to it. How would you really describe a normal person or a normal life? All I know is that I really do not want to be normal. To be normal is to be dull. It is to be average. It is to do all the mundane generic things, which you are supposed to do, but do not necessarily want to do. To be normal is to conform. To be normal you must shy away from change and progression. You will die without ever having lived. To be normal is to be nothing.

I do not know why I have been trying so hard the last few years to imitate some kind of normality. I was once able to embrace my uniqueness. As I child, when asked what my favourite activity was, I announced ‘bird watching’ with glee. I did not care about the strange looks I received from my peers. In fact, I relished my difference. I need to get that back. I should not be ashamed or embarrassed that I do not fit in with ‘normal’ society. I should not worry that I do not think the same as others.

I am different. So are you.

I am grateful that I am not normal.

Psychotherapy Session Two

Today was the day of my second session of psychotherapy. This morning passed so slowly, the afternoon slower. I was a ball of anxiety, desperately waiting for three o’clock. Not that I couldn’t wait for the session, but that I couldn’t wait for it to be over. I fidgeted, I faffed. I could not settle or concentrate on anything. Waiting, again.

As it turned 2.50pm, I was finally nearing the dreaded building. Fear began to overwhelm me, but alongside it fought an already approaching sense of relief. I fought against the anxiety and swallowed it down thinking ‘almost there means almost gone.’

As I sat down to begin the session my anxiety gentle eased away. Always present in the background, for now, at least, it was subdued. Only fifty minutes and then I would be free from this worry for another week. All in all, the session wasn’t too bad. The psychologist would pause for long periods of time, which I did not know if I was meant to fill with ramble or not. I almost laughed as these pauses continued to get longer and longer, but it was from nerves rather than amusement.

I talked about drifting through life and not making decisions. The problem again was that I was just telling him things that I already knew. I know why I can’t decide or find direction in my life. I want help to change that. I want to stop drifting. When you’ve been unemployed for a year, you have a lot of time to think and analyse. This last month or so of avoidance, I have been doing it a lot less, but still. He has fifty minutes a week and I have the other 10030 on top of another twenty three years.  I’m probably demanding a bit much when I expect him to help me make some major revelation when I’ve only spoken to him twice. I know, I need to give it time. The only conclusion we came to was that my life has been one moment of disillusion after another. Well who’s hasn’t been?

Next time, which won’t be for another two weeks, he suggested we discuss if I actually wanted to be there. I will decide, in the session, if I want to come back. Maybe we should have discussed that today, but perhaps I do need time to think. I had not intended to tell him that I didn’t want to be there, it just came out as an example of me not taking responsibility for or control over my own decisions. When he asked why I had not told him the first week, I replied: ‘I thought it would be a bit rude.’ I still think this, but perhaps it’s better if I am honest. I’m worried that I’m coming across as arrogant and a bit offensive, but I think it’s just the situation having a negative effect on me. When he asked if I wanted to get something from this I said: ‘I like to know why I am the way I am, but I would like to learn something I don’t already know…So you have to be very good.’ ‘I got that,’ he replied with a laugh. Well, at least he seems to be taking it well.

I really do need to make a proper decision about whether to continue on this leg of the journey or not. This weekend I need to speak to my parents about their expectations and pressure over this therapy. I need to let them know that guilt is the driving force in me continuing with it. I know that they are not making me go, but it would be beneficial for me, for them to say ‘You do not have to go. It is your choice,’ rather than ‘It will be good for you. It will help you,’ and implicitly saying that by not going I am refusing to get better. If that does happen, then I feel that only then can I properly make a choice about my own future. If I choose psychotherapy then I will be going to the sessions with a different mentality, a positive mentality.

Whatever my decision I cannot just use fifty minutes every week or two to work through my issues. It will take years to get anywhere. I need to actively learn about myself again and start living with the real me. The me who is sensitive, who has feelings, who hates inequality and injustice, who feels people’s pain and cares about others and the world. They were all positive traits, even if they were hard to live with. But they were, and again, could be me. I can become my true self again. Actually, I’m going to go for an improved version of my old self. Positive disintegration begins again.

Avoidance

The last few weeks, I have thought that I am getting ‘better’; crying less, doing more, coping. My one true aim only became explicit to me when I wrote the last post. There has been one thing and one thing only that I have been doing: avoiding.

I thought that my depression was becoming less of an issue; that I was finally dealing with some of my problems and working through them, but this is not true. My small attempts at confronting my anxiety and making it through difficult situations, have only been a distraction. I make myself get out of bed, I make myself eat regular meals, I wash, I clean the flat, I go on walks. I do not think. Perhaps, this is ‘normal’. Most of the people around me, and certainly my family, deal with their problems in this way. Ignore it. Do something else. Occupy your mind.

I agree that this is helpful, sometimes, as a way to prevent anxiety reaching an intolerable level. It proves useful in keeping the emotions in check and at a manageable level. However, living like this does not genuinely help me. I am stuck in a no man’s land of no future and no past. Each day comes and goes and passes much in the same way and the same will happen tomorrow.

Yesterday was a bad day for me. I cried myself to sleep the night before, finally feeling some of the sadness and pain that had been howling alone in the dark, not listened to and not felt. I had dreams of friends abandoning me at a hospital and family members leaving me there. They walked away without looking back as I called out to them not to leave me. All day I was on the brink of tears, sometimes giving in and letting them fall accompanied by some pathetic noises.

However, I kept bring my new card into play. I went for walks, I retreated to my bed, but watched a film rather than just lie there thinking, I started doing some hand washing at 10 o’ clock at night. Avoiding, avoiding, avoiding. I was conscious of it in a way I had not been before. I thought the avoidance was a sign of improvement. The tasks that I was completing throughout the day were trivial, but in comparison with a few months ago, they seemed to be something.

But I cannot remain like this. The sadness, fear and dark thoughts are beginning to penetrate my mind.

When I first read about Virginia Woolf’s suicide, I thought that it was strange and irrational to kill yourself before a bout of depression, for fear of it. Over the last few years I have begun to understand. You can feel it coming. You know it is waiting for you, a shadow in the dark, waiting to pounce on you and drag you under.

I do not know if I can manage that again, but how can I move forward with my life if all I concentrate on is day to day tasks and, above all, avoiding feeling anything?

I have been refusing to make decisions about anything. In ten weeks’ time I will be leaving this flat, but where I am going, I do not know. I have been avoiding updating my CV because then I will have to actively apply for jobs, which again involves making decisions about my future. I have been saying that I will go back to my parent’s house to visit for weeks, but something has always come up, which has prevented me. I have even convinced myself that I want to go, but the preventative factors have been out with my hands. Really, I know if I go back there I will not be able to continue these avoidance tactics as successfully as I have been doing. I have managed to avoid almost all real conversation and discussion since I have been here. I have definitely avoided confrontation. When I go back there, I will be confronted with all the problems I had when I left. The problems which I have made no attempt to resolve. I can go to therapy at the moment, because I know it will take weeks to get to any kind of unstable ground. I don’t know what I will do when I get there.

Today, instead of writing this post, I cleaned, I went for a walk in the pouring rain. I avoided.

I must face up to the facts. I am as lost and alone and afraid as I ever was. I need to accept that I am the person who is responsible for my life. I have decisions to make and I must confront them and make them. I could continue on like this for years and years. I may still be alive, but I will not have been living. To live, I must take risks. One of those risks is letting myself think, another is allowing myself to feel. I have proved that I can exist. I am terrified by the prospect, but now I must live.

Life at Level II – The Constant Conflict

‘Every authentic creative process consists of ‘loosening’, ‘splitting’ or ‘smashing’ the former reality. Every mental conflict is associated with disruption and pain; every step forward in the direction of authentic existence is combined with shocks, sorrows, suffering and distress.’

Dabrowski

In Dabrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration, level II is not a place where anyone can stay for long, without disastrous effects.

I have spent most of my life here; desperately fluttering up to level III, plummeting down, once again, to primary integration; trying to clip my own wings and hold myself there, only to begin the level II battle again.

Dabrowski termed level II unilevel disintegration. Unlike those at level I, who rarely undergo mental trauma much beyond their own basic and social needs, those at level II begin to experience this ‘loosening’ of their own ideas and sense of self. They suffer various forms of psychoneurosis, which may include anxiety and depression.  With increasing anger, confusion and despair, they will begin to feel the tension between ‘what is’ and ‘what ought to be.’

The main dynamisms associated with level II are ambivalences and ambitendencies. This means the person is impartial to conflicting choices, preferring neither one nor the other, and is drawn towards competing options equally. This point in their lives can be chaotic and they will experience a vast amount of dis-ease.  Other symptoms include a lack of inner direction and inner fragmentation. They may be submissive to the values of others and experience substantial impressions of inferiority.

I have felt in this state of uncertainty almost constantly for the past year and a half and at other times throughout my life. It is not just a feeling of depression and anxiety, but the complete loss of self.

I have always felt alone, even when surrounded by others, but I have never felt so isolated. I feel like an outsider to normal human interactions; I watch myself as if I were an actor on a stage, unable to control my actions or emotions. I reluctantly respond to the wished of others. I hide away and try and keep myself dumb. I can see no difference between one path in life or another and I have tried to convince myself to become like the others; everyone else. But at the same time, I want something in life which is more than just fulfilling my own basic needs. I want and need a purpose outside of myself. I am desperately searching for more. I found Dabrowski.

 

Level II is a transitional level in Dabrowski’s framework. He asserts that ‘Prolonged states of unilevel disintegration (level II) end either in a reintegration at the former primitive level or in suicidal tendencies, or in a psychosis.’

Dabrowski has analogised his theory to Plato’s infamous cave. Those at level I are bound to a life of watching shadows on the walls. Those at level III have seen through the façade and escaped from the life in the dark.

I think those at level two are at a cusp. It will take courage to walk into the light, but in the darkness is the safety and security that you have always known. In the cave there are people shouting to you, holding your arms, telling you that this is the real world, this is where you belong. To stay in the cave is to conform. The people there will tell you it is not normal to leave the cave, it is not done, you must make the best you can of this life, here, in the dark. To step out of the cave is to embrace the world; to stop ignoring the incongruities, to care for others, to become fully human.

To reach level III and beyond is not easy. I do not know yet how I will achieve it, but I know that I must overcome my fears. I have found a place of space, time and quiet, to battle with myself. I would rather spend my life fighting for level III, than accept a life I cannot live. It can be done.