I’m not normal

Posted by Karen Degen on 5th March 2014

Tags: mainstream, normal, sexuality, sliding scale, what is normal

I have a few clients who think they aren’t normal. TV and movies give us a picture of what ‘normal’ is i.e. having a family, a house, a 9-5 job, being ‘mainstream’ basically.  If they feel they don’t fit into this idea of normal they feel bad about themselves and they certainly don’t love and accept themselves.  It doesn’t benefit us to think of ‘normal’ as a distinct place.  ‘Normal’ is a sliding scale.  I imagine it to be like those old car heaters where you had blue at one end and red at the other and you moved the handle along the scale until you felt just right.  There was not really one place that was hot or cold, just varying degrees of temperature.  Normal is the same – there is no point on that scale where normal sits.  Sexuality is a sliding scale also, there’s not necessarily one place that says ‘heterosexual’ or ‘homosexual’, but varying degrees along the scale.  If you think of things that way you won’t be so hard on yourself for not being in the place you think ‘normal’ sits.