How do we define “normal”?
Almost all of us spend some portion of our lives wondering if we’re normal. Not a bad question, since the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) estimates that more than 1 in 4 Americans have a mental disorder. Someone with a mental disorder has behaviors, feelings and thoughts that deviate from the norm. In these circumstances, someone who isn’t “normal” doesn’t match up to what society (and medicine) considers standard. When we ponder what’s normal, it’s often in the sense of determining whether the way we think and act is the same as — or at least similar to — the majority of other people. In a social situation like a party, for example, you probably make polite conversation with a stranger about the host, the food and weekend plans. But a person with Asperger’s syndrome might have a 30-minute conversation with someone about engineering, not noticing bored expressions or restless shifting from foot to foot. This behavior is outside established parameters of what’s considered a
