Avery K. Tingle, The Gamer Author

There Is No Normal

I have struggled with mental health for as long as I could remember.

When I was eleven, I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyper Disorder. I still can’t sit still for very long. Over the years, I picked up Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I still grapple with feeling safe. Anger management grabbed me pretty young, though I didn’t know it was a thing until I got older. I avoid getting angry because once I do, it takes me entire days to get over it. I can also enter states where I don’t care about consequences. My anxiety is so severe that only medication keeps it from overwhelming me.

I’m not ashamed of any of this. All of this makes me who I am. I can’t help the things that were done to me, but I can choose how to deal with the aftereffects. . I can choose to take steps, to learn how to react to my triggers. Dealing with the realities of this condition is far worse than any stigma society could place on me.

The fact is, that almost everyone deals with some negative aspects of mental health. Almost everyone has dealt with some form of trauma. Almost everyone has been conditioned to keep this to themselves because no one wants to be viewed as ‘broken’.

When the truth is, we are all broken in some way. There’s nothing wrong with being broken. Acknowledging that we all struggle is the first step in healing.

Part of the reason we struggle as a society is that we keep reaching for this unattainable goal: to be normal. The fact is, there is no normal. What we really want is to be healed. But we stigmatize those who dare speak up about their problems. This is how we end up in this self-destructive cycle where no one gets help and people end up exploding.

There is no normal. There is a deeply wounded society searching for help in darkness. I would rather embrace the idea that we are all in need of care than continue to pretend that being broken is a bad thing.

Thanks for reading.