Some of us had relatively normal or successful lives before the illness. I was always upset at how certain people responded to me after I got sick and I’ve isolated too. At times I felt alone and I also only hung out with other friends from the hospitals.
But even when I was sick, the separation always made me unhappy and I did my best to not bother anyone or act out inappropriately.
Two things helped me thru the rough times, my somewhat vague religious faith and a belief that most people were good and not the type to persecute those who were sick.
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What helped me was coming out as sz, and having people accept me for who I was.
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No one was ever completely cruel to me on purpose.
I understood why it wasn’t easy for others to be around me at times, sometimes for my symptoms, sometimes for side-effects like being unable to sit still and making them nervous.
My drug friends simply decided to stop hanging out with me or giving me anything because they understood how harmful it was for me and that it interfered with my treatment.
Various people I tried to talk to tried to help. When I complained about voices accusing me of being homosexual, one friend suggested that maybe I was gay and another told me if someone accused him of being gay, he would say he was. He was straight, but wondered why I would care. Simply not understanding why something that wouldn’t have bothered me much before was now so distressing.
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I’ve lost a few friends because of my illness. People were afraid of me because I was behaving so erratically. But the friends I still have now are better than ever.
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One of the grestest things for recovery is realising that you are normal (or “normie”, whatever) because you start to understand that, yeah, everything that’s possible for everyone is possible for you too (getting a degree, getting a job, marriage, girlfriend, car, etc).
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Just recently I talked to two people i knew many years ago.
One said maybe i had some type of extraordinary powers of perception that allowed me to experience things in a different way that was a gift.
Another tried to figure out hearing voices as a scientific idea that had something to do with two brains or two types of brains. I had to cut him off because he was drunk and I didn’t feel like another person telling me their personal beliefs that were just naive and based on the type of thinking that we used to engage in in high school and were smoking pot and exchanging philosophies. Again, romanticizing schizophrenia and reducing it to a cartoonish level of reasoning.
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All people are normal. However, separation is inherently unequal (USSC, Brown v Board of Education(1954)).
We’re all people, and all people have differences. Like pieces of a puzzle. Only when we come together can we form a gorgeous mosaic.
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For me it’s all innocent.
When I use the term “normie” I’m describing someone who is not suffering from a psychotic disorder.
It’s as simple as that.
No negative intentions are behind the term.
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The terms “normies” or “normals” (without the hateful comments) seem harmless enough at first glance, but it affects all of our thinking to some degree. “They” may get a feeling of superiority. Those not included may feel a wide range emotions, like inferiority or exclusion. I’m totally okay not being thought of as a mainstream thinker, and I’m probably not the only one. Some of us want our “normal” lives back the way they were. Some of us are forever changed by our experiences and can’t imagine just being “normal” again. I like to think of people as individuals rather than clumps of “us” and “them”. Division, stigma and fear are the problem, in my view.
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My pdoc gets mad when I say that they are normies and I’m not. 
I believe that in this case it is good to generalize because the illness change our personality and therefore every single normie is different from us (they all talk talk talk bla bla bla laugh laugh…)
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Thanks for the thread @eighteyedspy23 I’ve used the term myself but didn’t mean it in a bad way. Everyone has their quirks and meets difficulty at any level of dysfunction. We all do what we can and that always leads to trouble, it’s a part of life and we should respect that everyone has their own, sometimes unique, difficulties.
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I’ve been thinking about this topic for awhile today, especially since I feel like maybe I didn’t come down on the side that’s gracious. But I think I’ve seen the light. Hearing the words “neuro typical” helped a lot and is something I’m going to add to my vocabulary.
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I dislike the term. Hate only breeds more hate. It’s not so much the term but the context it’s used in. It’s hateful and mean.
And it’s like yes “normies” have hurt lots of us. But the thing is us “psychos” or “crazies” can hurt each other too. And yeah those terms are ■■■■■■■ offensive that’s my point.
People hurt each other sometimes. Normal or not. Sometimes its unintentional, sometimes people just genuinely don’t understand or know what to do, or they have their own issues. It doesn’t make it right but it happens
Sometimes people hurt each other intentionally. That’s ■■■■■■ up but it also still happens. But the thing is you can choose to not be a ■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■.
So basically yeah the hate towards “normies” needs to ■■■■■■■ die. @eighteyedspy23 has a great point that we are only creating a toxic viewpoint of people not afflicted with this condition. Which is not helping anybody.
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I’ve been discussing various topics with my GF. And the topic of racial prejudice came up.
She talked about when she was a teenager and worked at a local restaurant. The Harlem Globetrotters had come to town and she told me that about her feelings towards the restaurant owner, who let them patronize his restaurant after hours. She was angry at him for not letting them in during normal business hours. When she described him, she not only referred to him as a ■■■■■■■ Greek (which she admitted was kinda racist in itself) and talked about him chewing on a cigar and being a drunk, both of which were just negative things said because of her own personal bias regarding such topics. She also talked about certain customers negative reactions when she let her personal ideas regarding fair treatment for different groups become known.
When I heard this story again, I had some new insight, and took a risk in talking to her about them. I just asked her if she understood that he would have suffered financially had he gone against the norms and values of that time and defied convention to let them come in during normal business hours or even when the restaurant was full of the usual patrons. That probably like most Americans, that standing up against this particular injustice would have severe personal consequences and simply might have put them in danger or possibly ruined their ability to work and take care of their families. I think that, based on the fact that he still served them and treated them well, was an indication that perhaps he was not so racist as she believed.
We went on and I discussed other tangents. The conclusion we both agreed on was that it was not an issue of people openly defying convention and setting themselves up as martyrs for a cause, but simply how well the people involved in various conventional practices from that time frame actually treated the other people they interacted with. She told me about people who employed African-Americans and treated them with dignity and respect and took extra care to help them the best they could.
Keeping certain events and behavior in context and understanding that it’s not so much the minor details, like a certain word being used on it’s own, but the intent behind the use is what is ultimately important.
Again, in my recent attempts to deal with increasing symptoms, I have been flooded with memories, and am overthinking and over-analysing everything I say. At the same time, trying to fulfill my normal responsibilities, and not respond to my voices inappropriately has become difficult at times.
Thanks for all of the replies, I enjoyed reading the responses to this thread. I have many new insights and I’m glad it seemed to be a healthy discussion rather than something that became a problem.
Apologies to those who I may have offended or acted inappropriately towards.
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The eye of the beholder, eh?
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Hmm. I use the term “normie” a lot, but when I say it, I don’t mean anything negative by it. I’ve even said “neurotypicals” before. It is definitely a derogatory term, though, like “sperg” is to refer to people with ASD. I should probably try to drop it.
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Yes I actually was thinking along these lines and will change the intent. The word neuro typical could be damaging towards relationships if the intent is still to make it “Us” and “Them”.
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I guess you really don’t know whether someone is a neurotypical or not anyways. It’s not like anybody is going to wave their hands and say “HEY EVERYBODY I’M ACTUALLY MENTALLY ILL AND VERY HIGH FUNCTIONING!” Although I guess most people are neurotypical or suffer from occasional depression.
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Lol this is basically me
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