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

by Gabor Maté

Though you may be justifiably grateful for your lot, the fact that others have suffered “more than” you does not diminish by one iota your own pain, nor erase its traces in your psyche. Levels of trauma are not to be evaluated, much less graded on a bell curve. You may, for example, have reassured yourself along the same lines as Erica did: “We were well off financially, I had a ton of friends, and so I wasn’t bullied—I didn’t have any of those big life circumstances.” “And fortunate you were,” I customarily interject. “But just imagine for a moment your little niece or nephew sobbing to you, ‘I feel so sad and alone and confused and I’m afraid to tell Mommy or Daddy about it.’ Would you, if you wished to be supportive, dismiss this little one with ‘Come on, what’s the problem here? Think of all the children who are having big life circumstances, like hunger or abuse or bullying. By contrast, you have nothing to complain about.’ Is that what you’d say to them if you wanted them to know their feelings were safe to feel, that they were lovable no matter what?” I have yet to hear anyone respond in the affirmative: when I put it to them that plainly, they’re finally able to hear in it the absurd double standard enforced against the self.