Normal Is Just A Number

I was reading a book recently called The Narcissism Epidemic about personal and cultural narcissism. It is a very interesting book because it's not too clinical and takes the reader through a history and evolution of narcissism from Greek mythology to reality television.

The most disturbing revelation in the book is that narcissistic personalities have become so pervasive in our society that they are considering dropping narcissistic personality disorder from the DSM V - the official catalogue of psychological dysfunction and disorder. Ironically, this seems to be the same rationale for considering dropping aspergers from the DSM V.

If we were to infer a trend here it would seem that the thinking is that once a disorder reaches a point of critical mass it's considered normal and no longer dysfunctional regardless of its impact on the individual or that individual's impact on the world around them.

In simple terms this is what people refer to as normalization. Usually we think of normalizing as changing individuals to fit the status quo but normal can mean a change in the status quo if a there are enough members with enough time and influence to impact it.

So, the nature of normal is really a matter of perspective. People often see their lives with autism as abnormal and see their objective as finding the bridge back to their perception of the status quo rather than accepting their new normal. The complications people see in their lives are not caused by having a an autistic child but in trying to not have one.

It's amazing how much simpler and more fluid your life becomes when you accept your normal and allow your child to be. When you focus on their strengths and let them be weak where they're weak, their strengths will overtake,compensate, dilute,and camouflage what was only perceived as a weakness