The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture

by Gabor Maté

In an absurd twist, we save up to buy the latest “time-saving” devices, the better to “kill” time.

Asthma is a well-studied example: the inflammation of the child’s lungs is directly affected by the mother’s or father’s emotions.

Australian researchers found that a bad job is worse for mental health than being out of work.

Key epigenetic markers—the ways certain genes expressed themselves—were different in the brains of rats who had received either more, or less, nurturing contact from their mothers.

it was the “nice” people, the ones who compulsively put other’s expectations and needs ahead of their own and who repressed their so-called negative emotions, who showed up with chronic illness

not knowing you are stressed, there is little you can do to protect yourself from the long-term physiological consequences.

Under a capitalist system notions and expressions of human nature will both mirror the individualized, competitive ideal and justify it as being the inevitable status quo. It makes sense: if what’s normal is assumed to be natural, the norm will endure; on the other hand, when suspicions emerge that the way things are may not be how they’re meant to be

Many of us will be ready to seek the truth only once we have concluded that the cost of not doing so is too high,

Every time we are triggered—which is to say, caught up suddenly in an unwanted, puzzlingly overwrought emotional reaction—that is the past showing up: an echo of our childhood as we actually experienced it, if not how we consciously recall it.

“we need to celebrate and support people who are ill because they’re the canaries in the mine. They’re the ones who are showing us that our society is out of balance, and we need to thank them