Beyond Guessing at What Normal Is
Beyond Guessing at What Normal Is
by Diane Bell
I've spent most of my life guessing at what "normal" is. It isn't an exciting lark of exploration. It's a shame based deficiency. It's a guessing game that perpetuates anxiety and insecurity within me. Creating stress seems to be a natural by-product for adult children of alcoholics. Living in stress is familiar, and therefore comfortable. It never occurred to me that I had any control over the emotional chaos I lived in or that I had a choice in changing it.
I felt different in a "not okay" way from other people. Seeking reassurance, I constantly compared the way I felt to the way other people appeared -- comparing my insides to their outsides. It was a continual state of lacking and longing. In recovery I learned that this is all normal for adult children. It was such a relief to discover that I was at least normal in one respect. Unfortunately that knowledge did not automatically stop me from playing the guessing game even in recovery.
In my typical adult child way, I believed that when I understood something, I was automatically able to master it. Gratefully, "Fake it till you make it" is a phrase I heard over and over again in my Al-Anon ACOA meetings and from my sponsor. At first I didn't relate it to me. I thought it was for newcomers and I'd been around for six months or so. Eventually the awareness came and I began to see the trap of my faulty thinking. I was also learning that awareness is the beginning of change for me and that I have choices in the direction of my life.
People in my meetings kept referring to normal people, or "normies", no matter what our topic was about. We all strongly identified with being the opposite of "normies". There was a great spirit of camaraderie in the identity, but being not normal still really bothered me. I happened to read a news article at that time that reported that one out of every three households in our country has a substance abuse problem involving alcohol and/or drugs. I carried it a step further and concluded that if that is true, then the neighbors on each side are affected, and our entire society consists of addiction and co-dependency. So, where is the role model or "normie" that I'm seeking to use as a yard stick in my guessing game?
Rationalizing is also a behavior of adult children, but in this case it provided me a safe, non-self-destructive belief that I could cling to until I was able to reach acceptance and learn to love myself just as I am. I cannot change the circumstances of my birth nor the fact that my mother was one of many alcoholics in my family. I can accept that all that I am is okay today. I'm not defective. My existence is not a shame. I am normal in my development as a child of an alcoholic -- classically so! There is no shame in that, but I don't have to cling to those learned behaviors and thought patterns. I can choose to develop my behaviors and beliefs that are appropriate and healthy. I can discard the ones that are self-destructive, as they do not serve me well today. I embrace and love the perfectly normal and lovable child of God that I am.
© Diane Bell
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