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Probably, each of us at least once in our lives came up with this question. Why do we have an anxious desire not to stand out too much from others?
“Sometimes I feel like I hate my sister. Is it normal?!”; “My husband believes that there should be two children in the family, but I don’t want to give birth anymore. Maybe something is wrong with me? “And what happened to me – I began to be afraid of the crowd, I even try not to go to the subway …”; “I don’t have a normal personal life!”…
As soon as I took up this topic, I involuntarily began to listen to what people of all kinds say about their anxieties. I could not imagine how many of us are concerned about being different from others, that they stand out with their reactions or inappropriate behavior. Why is this so interesting to us? Where does this excitement come from: what if I’m not like everyone else? Am I going crazy? Do others understand what I want to say, how I feel?
What is the norm?
“Sometimes this anxiety can hide the fear of going crazy,” says psychoanalyst Lola Komarova. – It is familiar to every person and is connected with the fact that in infancy we all experienced the experience of “crazy” – went through a state of disorientation. And now we are unconsciously afraid to lose real ideas about the world again.
But where is the boundary between normal and abnormal in mental life? In one of his later works, Freud wrote that he had not believed in its existence for a long time. He also argued that everyone is only partly normal. “Normality does not exist,” agrees psychoanalyst Marianne Ronvo. “Today a normal person is a normal neurotic.”
That is, one who often does not feel at peace with himself, but is able to contact other people and take care of himself, who can keep his impulses and desires within the generally accepted framework: anxiety, boredom, irritation, envy, self-doubt … Our habits, ” fads, oddities – all these are traces of our experience, special signs of our soul.
We live in the real world – unlike mentally ill people who are in a world of hallucinations
“And life is not always easy – but that’s okay too! continues the psychoanalyst. – On the other hand, each of us is somewhat different from the others, that is, from the abstract “statistical norm.” Absolute, XNUMX% normality is unattainable in principle – it is an illusion.”
“It seems that I have everything to be happy. And I feel bad – it’s not normal! Consultations with a psychotherapist often begin with such a complaint, says Marianne Ronvo: “In such a situation, I immediately clarify: why are you sure that you have everything for happiness? What exactly makes you think so?
The conversation immediately becomes substantive. And gradually the accents are changing: it turns out that the point is not that “I’m not the right one,” but that some things in me and my life do not suit me, and I can try to change this.
Clinical psychologist Elena Sokolova adds: “This question is a signal of mental distress that a person feels. This is a reason to ask yourself: how do I live, what do I want from life? What did I succeed and what didn’t I achieve?
In fact, this is the moment of the birth of the spiritual life itself, in contrast to the external life – mechanistic and non-reflexive. A person discovers the difference between external well-being and internal well-being – and this is a good starting point in order to understand oneself more subtly and deeply and begin to change.
Fear of rejection
Each of us has a natural need to fit into social life, to be accepted by other people. And this is difficult if we do not obey the rules by which we live in a given society.
“Our ideas about what is normal (correct, good) change at different stages of life,” recalls Lola Komarova. – So, a teenager rebels against his parents, refusing the rules of life accepted in his family, because the society of peers becomes more important for him, where other norms of communication apply. Although later, having matured, he can again return to family traditions, accept them already from the height of his new experience.
From childhood, we build ourselves by taking other people as a model. But there is also a downside.
The question “Am I okay?” expresses our dependence on others – on parents, relatives, classmates, fellow students, colleagues … “We are influenced by the group to which we belong,” continues Lola Komarova. “Our doubts about our “normality” are also a manifestation of the fear of being excluded, rejected by this group.”
There is another circumstance: almost three generations in our country lived under Soviet rule, when there was a single idea of what a citizen should be and think.
“In a modern Western-style society, to which we now, albeit at a stretch, we also relate, the concept of a cultural norm is blurred,” notes Elena Sokolova. – People with pronounced personality traits in this sense have become easier to follow their own values: for example, a modern freak would have been easily written down as crazy before.
But on the other hand, we are now faced with the need to independently choose from the whole variety of options. And many are not ready for this, for them the free choice is like a heavy burden.”
“I am not like others”
Maxim, 38 years old
“From childhood, I felt that there was a difference between me and others. I did not understand why relationships with peers are so difficult for me – I was not interested in what worried them. I felt alone, although I tried not to lose contact with other people.
Once I met psychologists who tested me and said that I had “superpowers” - that is, I think faster than others, I have a very developed intuition, I experience everything that happens more strongly, I feel more sharply, and therefore I am easily hurt.
This does not mean that I am smarter than others, better than them, or generally have some kind of superiority. On the contrary, at school I had problems, I did not have enough incentives to study. I don’t even know what my exact IQ is, I’m not interested. What do I want today? You just need to understand yourself better.”
Be in trend?
The desire to be “like everyone else” sometimes makes us obey “abnormal”, irrational rules. The architect Zhanna complains that she has got into insane debts: she needs to celebrate her son’s wedding on a grand scale. In the next few years, she will have to deny herself everything in order to return this money.
She agrees that this is crazy, but continues to repeat one thing – “it’s customary.” Who accepted and why? After all, none of her friends and relatives would have condemned her if she had abandoned this venture.
“Sometimes the irrational becomes the norm,” confirms Lola Komarova. “And it takes a lot of effort to follow through. A person lives with a constant feeling that he is being evaluated. And far from always this is his real environment – the reference group can be the fruit of his imagination.
Sometimes the desire to “be in trend” takes painful forms: endless plastic surgeries, diets that lead to anorexia …
Elena Sokolova, who has studied this topic, says: “Psychological dependence on fashion standards is not only about the body: in the same way, some people change their views in pursuit of the trend. Such “weathervanes” easily become the object of manipulation.
If we correlate current trends in fashion, art or culture with our tastes and properties of our “I”, this indicates awareness of our relationship with the outside world. But the one who follows patterns or authorities mindlessly loses the integrity of his “I” or changes it to the favor of those who are “in trend” and on whom he is too dependent.
Show yourself
And yet some of us feel that following the norm means being more secure. As if they can once and for all insure us against mistakes. But everyone has their own unique path, and we cannot go through it without making our own decisions.
Psychoanalyst Joyce McDougall describes “normopathy” – an obsession with normality, behind which a person hides his inner chaos. “Such a person works, he has a family, but deep down he is completely disorganized: super-serious, completely devoid of humor, spontaneity, he suppresses his emotions and impulses for fear that he will be captured by an impulse that he cannot resist.”
Of course, this is an extreme case. But still, how often do we get frightened when we discover that our individuality does not meet our imagined standards. Especially if it concerns the sexual sphere: after all, it is based on our fantasies.
From the point of view of psychoanalysis, there is no desire “more standard” than others
But what if the person is suffering? “I won’t say to a patient who complains of obsessions and washes his hands a hundred times a day: this is not normal,” says Marianne Ronvo. – I will say this: this situation must be very tormenting you. It is a mistake to regard such a neurotic symptom as a pathology.”
We can “leave” some symptoms for ourselves even after a course of psychotherapy – they are rooted in our personal history and will disappear only with us. “When people find themselves, when they dare to express their deepest desires, they cease to be conformists,” concludes the psychoanalyst.
To become more confident in ourselves, sometimes we try to look like everyone else. But it is equally important for us to show our individuality, to take place in our uniqueness.