The Life Examined: Mental Health and the Relief of Diagnosis

Some people wander through life without ever questioning anything, or seeking deeper meaning in anything. They're quite content to move around in the shallows and the immediacy of what they need to do right now and today and tomorrow.

Some of us, however, end up fitting into the category that those same people would probably describe as "thinking too much."

Typically, we end up in that particular predicament because we get told one too many times that we are weird, or not normal, or something is "wrong" with us, or we simply observe ourselves within our surroundings and notice that we seem radically different from the way everybody else is behaving and portraying themselves.

And so, we start thinking; and we start going in search of answers.

Why Don't I Fit In?

Life in our society has changed a good bit since I was a kid. When I was little, some kids were just regarded as "weirdos," and that's about as far as it went. We we're told that we'd "better change our ways" to fit in better or we would never get ahead in life, and certainly not be picked for the soccer team.

And so we did, as best we could, employing that technique that psychologists of 2023 would call "masking."

Nowadays, we have a virtual cornucopia of different psychological diagnoses for pretty much every situation! To be honest, I think some of them are far fetched to the point of representing wishful thinking more than actual Mental Health conditions, but it's not my place to decide that.

However, on my own personal journey, it was very helpful to be able to put a "name" on this sense of feeling weird. After all, if some behavior actually has a scientific name, you're no longer alone with your situation.

Before I go any further, I'm definitely open to the possibility that everybody feels "weird" at one time or another. When I am talking about weird in my personal situation, I talk about a sense of feeling weird to the point where you just can't find a way to fit into what the world considers normal.

It's difficult to describe, and might best be characterized as the sensation that what the majority feels to be right feels wrong to you, and what feels right to you seems very strange to the majority.

It also relates to the fact that when somebody says "oh, just stop it!" you find yourself thinking "well, it's not as easy as that..."

• Anxiety
• Avoidant Personality Disorder
• Sensory Processing Sensitivity
• Autism Spectrum
• ADHD, Inattentive

These are just a few of the terms that have crossed my path on the journey towards understanding. I'm not going to claim that they are necessarily right, but they were illuminating, at least.

And there is a degree of healing in that; at least you realize that you're not an isolated freak.

I never sought treatment for any of my "strangeness," as I am OK with how I have my life sorted. But it definitely is too to know at least a little about how my brain works.

Thanks for stopping by and have great remainder of your weekend!

Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation! I do my best to answer comments, even if it sometimes takes a few days!

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Created at 2023-10-22 00:43 PDT
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