In another non-scientific article: ‘Normality’ is the issue. What is normal, does this concept or ideal of normality help or hinder psychological recovery.
A few years ago I was admitted to a under-rated psychiatric hospital, where I was stationed for three months. These three months gave me the diagnosis of Schizophrenia. But in truth, I was psychotic for some time prior to this point.
Schizophrenia was something extreme for me prior to my own diagnosis; it’s extreme for a lot of people. People who probably consider themselves ‘normal’. To me to be normal in their sense would be just as extreme and frightening!
Normal was a key word in my admission in hospital. It was not openly discussed, but bandied about under the radar, in slang terms for many people there. Once in a state of control I simply said the word ‘normal’ in the presence of a high-ranking Doctor there, it felt like a release, a revelation for me. It proved an opening in my own mental health recovery. A means of recovery.