The Attribution Of Normality Has To Do With The Specificity Of A Culture
I often observe among my clients a certain need to be normal and at the same time be different ; They don’t like to be like the majority, but they are afraid of being different.
Because being different means running the risk of being excluded from the group or society, and that is the greatest punishment that a human being can be subjected to.
So that We are going to do everything possible to be validated in the group and at the same time also have permission to validate , because that is the meaning of belonging. Maximum aspiration of the human being. I think even above being loved.
This is the only way to explain the tolerance we create to mistreatment, abuse, discomfort, and the attachment to the suffering that we manifest. etc
In this search for belonging, when people feel that perhaps they do not fit into everyday life or the common, suffering arises and they sometimes turn to us, psychologists or therapists, or people who accompany them in difficult processes, in search of something that includes them. Something with which they feel included, something that explains their strangeness but under the idea that it is normal, that it happens to more humans.
They come looking for a solution, but one that involves belonging, normality And they also come looking for an explanation that calms them, that places them in a place where there are human beings like them, who have a series of common characteristics and that allows them to feel accepted (even if it is within a group that may a priori cause rejection). . Paradoxes of the human being.
Sometimes even unconsciously we are able to accentuate the characteristics that separate us from the group to which we would like to belong if with this we approach another group. That is to say, we can even go so far as to beg for a simple label that allows us to identify with someone, with “someone else like me”, even if it is to belong to the group of the excluded, (there is already a plural, it is not just me and that reassures me , I have someone, I belong…).
Discomfort due to loneliness
Human beings handle loneliness badly, since there is no greater punishment for a social and rational animal than to release it into the herd, society, and be ignored by it. He dies.
Therefore, we make sense when they see us , since it is a way to confirm identity. This is because “the other” is the feedback of who we are, the mirror in which we look at ourselves in order to correct course and grow. When they ignore us we lack data and we are lost. We simply don’t see each other either, because we don’t exist.
Although we could say that it is the belief that the other ignores us, the translation of their response or non-response, that builds in us that absence of self-esteem and vulnerability and identification with the other
The use of labels regarding one’s own identity
Thus, many times we, the professional helpers, can fall into the temptation of, to alleviate suffering, resort to a diagnosis and give them a label that guarantees them “normality”; although over time they realize that it doesn’t make sense, that nothing has changed, only in appearance it is calmer.
Thus, you begin to give yourself permission to behave in accordance with the meaning of the label you paid for. That tranquility turns into restlessness, when he observes that nothing changes when suffering does not decrease but begins to become chronic.
All this makes sense, because it is as if by labeling we went to the warehouse in our little box: neurotic, depressive, bipolar, personality disorder… and to rest. Only we don’t rest, because we are much more than a label, much more than 100 labels, we are much more than all that. And if we are on one shelf, we cannot be on another, since we do not possess the gift of ubiquity.
The human being has another peculiarity and that is that he likes to feel free, he has given it that way; and sometimes he likes to stand out, even if it is simply for the luxury of innovating and growing. So it is that It is bad for everything he does to be looked at through the glasses of the label he bought since that means you have to give up growth.
Thus we can explain why states become chronic, contrary to all the advances in neuroscience, where it is more than proven that the neuroplasticity of the brain allows new synaptic connections to be established so that new behaviors are established, supported by a different chemistry.
Therefore, how do we do not fall into the static nature of the adjective or of etiquette and favoring eventuality, impermanence and the possibility of change and relief from suffering?
