4 Generations—What age is normal?
Normal Varies
I overheard my 5-year-old granddaughter murmured something about being normal. When I asked her what she meant she said, “My brother is old, my little sister is young and I am normal.”
Her comment made me smile. As a middle child, her perspective makes sense. From a grandma’s viewpoint, all three children are young. Normal was the place I saw myself for many years, right in the middle of my children and my parents. But a few years ago both my parents passed away, my children had children and my perspective changed; now I feel old. Normal is looking more like the beautiful people on Instagram. But to someone sitting in a nursing home perhaps, I still appear normal. It all depends on your outlook.
View Point Changes Outlook
Sunrise or sunset?
We experience a sunset in the western hemisphere closing the day but somewhere in the eastern part of the world someone is seeing the same sun rising, beginning the day. A different location, a different conclusion reached.
Our perspective can change our attitude. Sometimes a tragedy is an opportunity or life pointing to a different path.
- A student, who doesn’t get into the business school, may reevaluate a teaching career.
- A rejected lover may reconsider a less attractive but kinder person.
- A youth cut from the basketball team may take up a lifetime sport of tennis or golf.
- Grieving parents may support a community outreach program to support others in pain.
Problems Can Be De-stigmatized
Talking with a trained counselor or friend opens up a different way of seeing a situation. Feelings of grief, despair, anger, or sadness are part of the human experience. They are hard but they are a normal stage of growth or change. When you are dead you feel no pain but do you really want “dead people’s emotions”?
- A person struggling with addiction feels like a failure because they struggle with cravings. When they are told cravings are a normal part of recovery for many years but they are momentary and pass if not acted upon, an immediate look of relief comes over them.
- A victim of sexual abused in childhood often suffers poor boundaries as adults. They may over eat, over spend or continue to act out sexually until the trauma is resolved. Once this is explained as a normal symptom and not a character default, their self-image shifts.
- A trauma survivor is likely to have some form of PTSD or flashbacks. Labeling the the situation normal and something, which will pass, helps.
“Normal” Is THE Desired State—NOP
No one wants to be a loser. Everyone wants to be a NOP, a Normal Ordinary Person without problems. We perceived normal as a place where kids are always good, no one gets sick and money is plentiful, like everyone else.
A kaleidoscope is an amazing instrument. One slight turn of the wrist and the same elements turn into an entirely different pattern.
Normal can shift but you may need to adjust your mind’s kaleidoscope. Noted clinical psychologist and author, Michael D. Yapko says, “ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION ARE DISORDERS OF PERCEPTION.”
Life’s secret is that everyone else struggles. Accepting this truth helps ease the burden. Adjusting your perception and help as you work through life and the trials that come to everyone.
CAMILLE FOSTER, LCSW
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Another blog article that talks about how perception guides mental health: Truth or Consequences for Emotional Health
Great TED talk on the power of emotions by Susan David: http://t.ted.com/kZ3eEcm
