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

by Gabor Maté

I have found them not only present but prominent among people with all manner of chronic illnesses, from cancer to autoimmune disease to persistent skin conditions, through a gamut of maladies including migraine headaches, fibromyalgia, endometriosis, myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), also known as chronic fatigue syndrome, and many others. In no particular order, these traits are an automatic and compulsive concern for the emotional needs of others, while ignoring one’s own; rigid identification with social role, duty, and responsibility (which is closely related to the next point); overdriven, externally focused multitasking hyper-responsibility, based on the conviction that one must justify one’s existence by doing and giving; repression of healthy, self-protective aggression and anger; and harboring and compulsively acting out two beliefs: “I am responsible for how other people feel” and “I must never disappoint anyone.” These characteristics have nothing to do with will or conscious choice. No one wakes up in the morning and decides, “Today I’ll put the needs of the whole world foremost, disregarding my own,” or “I can’t wait to stuff down my anger and frustration and put on a happy face instead.” Nor is anyone born with such traits: if you’ve ever met a newborn infant, you know they have zero compunction about expressing their feelings, nor do they think twice before crying lest they inconvenience someone else. The reasons these habits of personality, as we might call ...