Ariii
Member
- Oct 29, 2023
- 83
First, sorry if this seems schizo and unclear, I kind of just wrote without thinking
When I use the word normal, I mean relative to the average, mentally-healthy person (which I am not, considering I'm on this fourm). There's a lot of things in my life that I'm coming to the realization that aren't as "normal" as I used to think. Like my hobbies, I would say I enjoy them, but when I say enjoy, I mean more like it's a feeling of "being too distracted to be bored" if that makes sense, rather than actual pleasure. Is that "normal?" I'm inclined to say yes, because that's been my entire life. But is it normal to the average person? Based on how people word things, I would say no. But I'm not sure, because a lot of nuances and things get lost in language, which I don't know about because I'm not in anybody else's brain.
With my emotions, I hear people say stuff like "With depression, your emotions become blunted". Well, how am I supposed to know if my emotions are normal or not if I have nothing to reference it to? I guess the obvious solution would be comparing them to the past, but I can barely remember anything from even six months ago, everything emotions-wise is hazy. If I can't do that, then the only way is to compare it to how other people react to the same situations, right? But the thing is, there's 1) a ton of nuance in every situation and 2) people react differently anyways.
For example, my father was emotionally absent for my entire childhood. From reading other people's experiences, I know that people would feel upset. But for me, I had my mother and brother to support me. If they hadn't been there, would I feel more upset? So would anyone else who is mentally healthy in my exact situation react as I did? Am I reacting "normally" in that situation? Or is the lack of feeling towards my father a sign of something? What I'm saying is that I can't really compare situations without knowing the full story, I guess.
Even after he took a knife and threatened to kill my mother, I still feel nothing towards him. My friends say they would be furious if that was their parents, but I quite literally feel nothing towards him. Is that normal? Because even though my friends say that they would be angry, my mother and brother feel the same way I do (from what I can tell). My mother hates him, but not because of that incident, more because he doesn't help around the house and keeps getting fired from jobs. But she doesn't gaf about that incident. My brother never took it seriously, so I assume he doesn't care. So I have these two complete opposite references for what I consider to be functioning and successful people. So how do I determine which reaction is "normal?" I'm leaning towards my friend's hypothetical reactions, but once again there's a lot of nuance. (He apologized right after, never actually hurt anyone, just a one-time incident, etc..) Of course different people react differently, but then if that's the case, how do we, as a society, determine who is mentally fucked? Why are some things deemed "Yea, maybe a bit weird, but ppl react differently" and "Get a therapist retard" I would assume the extremity of it?
More generally, what I'm saying is that how do I get a reference for what is normal and what is not. I can't enter the average person's brain to see how they react. And I can't reference reactions from an outsiders POV because even situations that look similar on the surface and be completely different. Plus different people react differently.
With these examples, I never gave it much thought before because it never caused me much distress. But then I was talking about it causally with a few friends, and they told me that I didn't seem all that there, emotions-wises. (Not just in reference to that incident. What sparked that convo was that I mentioned I only felt genuine anger less than five times in my life (not really including annoyance tho)). So I've been reconsidering, and yeah, I feel like most people would feel at least something towards someone like my father. But at the same time, if it's not causing me distress (kind of the opposite, as I'm avoiding being upset), why should I care? Maybe I'm just an unemotional person, idfk
Once again, sorry for being completely incoherent, just needed to rant and I need to sleep
When I use the word normal, I mean relative to the average, mentally-healthy person (which I am not, considering I'm on this fourm). There's a lot of things in my life that I'm coming to the realization that aren't as "normal" as I used to think. Like my hobbies, I would say I enjoy them, but when I say enjoy, I mean more like it's a feeling of "being too distracted to be bored" if that makes sense, rather than actual pleasure. Is that "normal?" I'm inclined to say yes, because that's been my entire life. But is it normal to the average person? Based on how people word things, I would say no. But I'm not sure, because a lot of nuances and things get lost in language, which I don't know about because I'm not in anybody else's brain.
With my emotions, I hear people say stuff like "With depression, your emotions become blunted". Well, how am I supposed to know if my emotions are normal or not if I have nothing to reference it to? I guess the obvious solution would be comparing them to the past, but I can barely remember anything from even six months ago, everything emotions-wise is hazy. If I can't do that, then the only way is to compare it to how other people react to the same situations, right? But the thing is, there's 1) a ton of nuance in every situation and 2) people react differently anyways.
For example, my father was emotionally absent for my entire childhood. From reading other people's experiences, I know that people would feel upset. But for me, I had my mother and brother to support me. If they hadn't been there, would I feel more upset? So would anyone else who is mentally healthy in my exact situation react as I did? Am I reacting "normally" in that situation? Or is the lack of feeling towards my father a sign of something? What I'm saying is that I can't really compare situations without knowing the full story, I guess.
Even after he took a knife and threatened to kill my mother, I still feel nothing towards him. My friends say they would be furious if that was their parents, but I quite literally feel nothing towards him. Is that normal? Because even though my friends say that they would be angry, my mother and brother feel the same way I do (from what I can tell). My mother hates him, but not because of that incident, more because he doesn't help around the house and keeps getting fired from jobs. But she doesn't gaf about that incident. My brother never took it seriously, so I assume he doesn't care. So I have these two complete opposite references for what I consider to be functioning and successful people. So how do I determine which reaction is "normal?" I'm leaning towards my friend's hypothetical reactions, but once again there's a lot of nuance. (He apologized right after, never actually hurt anyone, just a one-time incident, etc..) Of course different people react differently, but then if that's the case, how do we, as a society, determine who is mentally fucked? Why are some things deemed "Yea, maybe a bit weird, but ppl react differently" and "Get a therapist retard" I would assume the extremity of it?
More generally, what I'm saying is that how do I get a reference for what is normal and what is not. I can't enter the average person's brain to see how they react. And I can't reference reactions from an outsiders POV because even situations that look similar on the surface and be completely different. Plus different people react differently.
With these examples, I never gave it much thought before because it never caused me much distress. But then I was talking about it causally with a few friends, and they told me that I didn't seem all that there, emotions-wises. (Not just in reference to that incident. What sparked that convo was that I mentioned I only felt genuine anger less than five times in my life (not really including annoyance tho)). So I've been reconsidering, and yeah, I feel like most people would feel at least something towards someone like my father. But at the same time, if it's not causing me distress (kind of the opposite, as I'm avoiding being upset), why should I care? Maybe I'm just an unemotional person, idfk
Once again, sorry for being completely incoherent, just needed to rant and I need to sleep
Last edited:
