Blog > Thoughts > Sean's Thoughts > Recurring theme
Recurring theme
Written by Sean on Wednesday, October 18, 2006
There seems to be a recurring theme surfacing after several chats I had with transabled individuals. Whether they are wheeling full-time, or don’t even own a chair, whether they think that an amputation is the way to go or think they can handle their life without an impairment, there is one general theme coming up: They all want to be normal.
Going around eternally.
To me however, normal is something that doesn’t really exist. There’s a quip about "normal is a cycle on the washing machine". You can go round and round in circles trying to reach the "normal" stage. But normal changes as you reach it.
I remember reading a statistic somewhere that there were only about 23% of the population that had enough in common that they created a norm. This means that 67% of people don’t fit in a neat little package. I fluently speak three languages, and can more or less converse in two more. That makes me unusual in the United States, but not at all in Europe. What’s normal in one place isn’t somewhere else. A wheelchair user is part of a minority group, until they get on the quad rugby field… I’m sure you get what I’m getting at :)
But perhaps we want to be normal because what we really want is to fit in. It might also be that our need to fit in is unrelated to us being transabled. Or if there’s a link, it might not be a direct link. I know I certainly haven’t ever really felt like I fit in anywhere in particular. Not as a kid among other kids. Not as a member of a profession. Not even as a member of hobby groups. The only time/place where I feel I fit in is in my interactions with and within the disability community. But of course, I don’t *really* fit there, do I? Or if I do, it’s on different grounds than those that community thinks. I’ll never really fit in. Or I’ll fit as much as I can, up to a point.
Even if I became a para, I’d not really fit in to the disability community, because I’d have chosen my impairment, unlike the vast majority of folks with disabilities. Not fitting in the world at large, because you have an impairment. Not fitting in the disability community because you chose to have your impairment. Not fitting in anywhere. No normalcy on the horizon.
We can’t be normal. We’ll never really fit in. Where does that leave us? I think that rather than hoping to be "normal", we should focus on being happy, or content, or comfortable in our own "miserable" skin.
[tags]Transabled, Wheelchair, Normal, Disability, Impairment, Amputee, Fitting In[/tags]This entry appears in Sean's Thoughts, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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2 Comments
Agreed with the not fitting in. I went to some amputee support meetings, but got scared off when a new girl got the Devs are Evil lecture. Then I realise I’m surrounded by a bunch of people who are currently friendly but would probably hate me if they knew the truth about me and my amputation.
I don’t know about laundry, but in mathematics normal means “at 90 degrees to”
By that description I am normal to a lot of things :)
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1 On 19 October, 2006, Sandy said:
What is “normal”? It’s a definition in our mind or given by others, not more. I fully agree that we should focus on being happy, comfortable etc. but also getting along with others. I think there is no need to exactly fit into a group.
BTW, which languages to you speak, Sean? French, n’est-ce pas? What else?