Do you recall when you first started to associate “normal” and “abnormal” with people you come across in life? Maybe it was in middle school? Our society gives so much power to these two words. We really, should delete them from all languages. Altogether. Forever. Never speak of them again. EVER.
Type the word “normal” into an online thesaurus. What words come up as synonyms? Natural, traditional, regular, commonplace, standard, customary, popular… ugh, just writing these out angers me. Essentially, our society has deemed that normal is “good” or “positive”. Now type in “abnormal” into the same online thesaurus, and what synonyms populate? Strange, bizarre, odd, peculiar, unnatural, weird. Basically, abnormal = bad or negative.
In social situations, we attach these two terms too regularly, to people: complex human beings who possess amazing and wonderfully intricate feelings. To associate a word, with so much power (which, our society has given it) to one human being, is a form of judgment. And to be honest, most of the devastation, pain, hatred, evil, we inflict on our fellow man, stems from judgment of one another.
To label a person, as “normal” or “abnormal” means, you are making a statement of judgment. We are deciding, by using these two words, what we feel is considered strange, peculiar, unnatural, weird or traditional, regular, commonplace, standard, customary. Who the hell are we, to decide that about another human being? I have first hand experience of being tagged as “abnormal”, primarily because I’m biracial. Oh, and a girl I worked with once, told me I’m abnormal because I’ve never once in my life smoked a cigarette or tried any recreational drug, ever. To be considered strange, peculiar, unnatural, or weird, cuts VERY deep and I felt greatly offended.
If you took off all our skin, our flesh is all pink. We bleed red blood. We have the same organs. We have the same types of bones. Your cells strive to operate the same as the girl who sits beside you in algebra class. We all have an amazing computer inside our skulls. How different, are we truly, from each other? And, if we are different, so what? I don’t believe there is a “normal” or “abnormal” when it comes to people. We are a whack of people, hurtling around the sun, just trying to stay alive, so really how “abnormal” is that?