Welcome to Under the Surface. This is where we slow down and
look at the patterns underneath the stories we tell ourselves.
Today's chapter is called What is the Definition of Normal?
And underneath the idea of normal is often a set of
assumptions. We never chose for ourselves
expectations about how people should live, heal, struggle,
communicate, and belong. The problem is that life rarely
fits those expectations. Somewhere along the way, many of
us learned to confuse different with wrong, unfamiliar with
unhealthy, and acceptance with conformity.
Welcome to No One Is Normal, the podcast where real stories
remind us that none of us are alone.
You can also visit the website www.bradhhill.com or
www.nooneisnormal.co for resources, updates and future
podcast episodes. I am Brad Age Hill and each week
we talk about the messy, the complicated, and the deeply
human moments that shape us and remain in our memories.
I am not here to tell anyone how to live.
I am here to offer the stories, the insights that made me
realize that no one is normal, including me.
Because healing starts when self honesty begins.
What is normal? People use that word like the
definition is obvious. Somebody handles life
differently, needs support in a way others do not understand, or
lives outside the picture and another person had in their head
and the judgment can come out fast.
That is not normal. A sentence like that can sound
harmless, but it carries weight. It can point to something
unhealthy, and there are times when that matters.
Abuse is not healthy. Cruelty is not healthy.
Addiction, control, neglect, and manipulation do not become
acceptable just because people have seen them before.
Still, the same phrase also gets used when someone is simply
unfamiliar, inconvenient, disabled, grieving, recovering,
anxious, quiet, intense, different, or honest in a way
that makes the room uncomfortable.
Those are not the same thing. Most of us are handed a
definition of normal before we are old enough to inspect it.
It comes through 100 small moments rather than one big
lesson. A parent's comment, a teacher
rewarding one kind of behavior and correcting another, family
members avoiding certain subjects or friends laughing at
someone who stands out. Television, social media,
church, school, work, and the people around us all add their
peace. Over time, those pieces become a
measuring stick. We start to believe we know what
a family should look like, how pain should be handled, how
success should appear, how a person should communicate, what
strength is supposed to sound like, and how much of our real
life is safe to let other people see.
Then life refuses to fit the picture.
Some people grow up around instability and spend years
mistaking tension for normal. Others carry grief before they
have language for it. Addiction, trauma, disability,
illness, shame, anxiety, and memories that do not fade on
command can change how a person moves through the world.
A life may require more patience, more support, more
rest, or a different rhythm than everyone expected.
Too often, the world makes that person feel like the problem.
I do not buy that as easily as I used to.
There is a real difference between something being
unhealthy and something being different.
Harmful patterns should be challenged.
An unfamiliar life should be approached with humility.
When we lose that distinction, we end up judging people for not
matching a standard we never bothered to question.
A lot of damage gets done there. People spend years chasing
normal when what they really need is honesty.
They may not even be trying to become whole.
Acceptable becomes the target. The mask gets better, but the
person underneath keeps carrying the same weight.
I know what that feels like. There have been times when I
looked around and wondered why certain things seemed easier for
everyone else, even as I kept functioning on the outside while
feeling out of place inside. For a long time I thought the
answer was to get better at looking fine.
That did not heal much. It only made the mask fit
tighter. The older I get, the more I
believe the goal was never to become normal.
What matters more is becoming honest enough to know what is
healthy, what is familiar, what needs to change, and what was
never wrong with us in the 1st place.
Normal is a slippery word because people use it to mean
too many things at once. In one conversation it means
common. In another, it means acceptable.
It can also stand in for tradition, social comfort, or
the simple fact that someone has never had to think beyond their
own experience. That last version causes a lot
of harm. If something is abusive, cruel,
destructive, or dishonest, calling it normal should never
protect it. A family does not get to hide
abuse behind tradition. Workplaces should not normalize
disrespect just because people are under pressure.
No one gets to keep hurting others and reduce the damage to
personality. Unfamiliar is different.
A person may live differently because their body requires it.
Their mind may process sound, stress, emotion, information, or
connection in a way others do not immediately understand.
History can shape a person's sense of safety, trust, rest,
and closeness. A disability, whether visible or
invisible, may add planning to tasks that other people move
through without a second thought.
None of that makes a person less human.
This is where dignity enters the conversation.
Dignity means respect does not have to be earned by
convenience. I do not need every part of
someone's life explained to me before I can stop being careless
with it. A person should not have to fit
neatly inside my comfort zone before I treat their needs like
they matter. That sounds simple until it asks
something from us. It asked me to admit that the
world does not look the same from every seat in the room.
The way I walk through a doorway, sit in a meeting,
handle noise, manage stress, or recover from a hard day may be
completely different from the way another person experiences
those same moments. My reality is real, but it is
not the default setting for humanity.
A lot of what gets called normal is really majority comfort.
When enough people do not have to think about something, they
can start believing nobody else should have to think about it
either. The person who does have to
think about it becomes the interruption even when all they
are asking for is room to exist without carrying the entire
burden of explanation that wears people down.
Being misunderstood once is frustrating when it becomes the
regular cost of showing up. A person can start shrinking
before anyone even says a word. They learn which parts of their
life are too much for the room, then they edit themselves into a
version that other people find easier to digest.
That is not healing. It is survival dressed up as
manners. I think about childhood the same
way. A kid does not separate healthy
from familiar with any kind of clarity.
Children usually do not analyze family systems, emotional
neglect, addiction patterns, anger, fear, instability, or
control. They adapt to whatever world
they are given. I did that a lot of people do.
You figure out which rooms are safe and which subjects change
the temperature. Silence becomes a tool.
Humor becomes a tool. Working harder, disappearing,
becoming useful, pushing back, or avoiding attention can all
become ways to get through a day.
When you are young, those responses may not feel like
choices, they feel like survival.
Later in life, the same patterns can follow you into places where
they no longer belong. Gardenness gets called
toughness. Fear of needing anyone gets
renamed independence. Expecting disappointment can
sound like being realistic. There may be some truth in those
labels, but they do not tell the whole story.
The hard part is that our patterns usually made sense at
some point. That is why we defend them.
They helped us keep moving when better tools were not available.
Understanding that history matters, but it does not mean
the pattern gets to run the rest of our lives.
A pattern can make sense and still need to change.
That line keeps coming back to me because it creates room for
both compassion and responsibility.
I can stop treating myself like a mystery, and I can also stop
treating my past like a life sentence.
Once familiar no longer automatically means healthy.
The old measuring stick loses some of its power.
Then the better questions become possible.
Where did this definition come from?
What did it cost? Who was protected by it?
What part of it helped me survive, and what part is now
keeping me stuck? Those questions are
uncomfortable, but they are much more useful than trying to win a
contest nobody can define. For a long time, I confused
looking normal with being OK. As long as I kept going,
working, handling responsibility, and giving
people enough evidence that I was fine, I could avoid looking
too closely at what was happening underneath.
There was always something useful to point to.
I showed up, produced and functioned.
From the outside that can pass for strength.
Inside it can be something else entirely.
Productivity does not always mean peace.
Respect from other people does not guarantee self respect.
A person can answer the emails, pay the bills, keep the
appointments, make the jokes, and still be caring parts of
their life they have not faced. Honestly, I know that because I
lived pieces of it. There were times when I wanted
the outside evidence to be enough.
If life looked stable, I did not have to ask why certain things
still felt unresolved. Good explanation could keep me
from admitting where I was making excuses.
Staying busy helped me outrun emotions.
That we're not going away just because I refused to slow down.
That kind of normal is expensive.
Peace usually goes first. After that it starts taking
honesty, connection, self respect, and the ability to
recognize your own voice. You spend so much energy
maintaining the version of yourself, people understand that
the real version gets pushed into the background.
I do not think most people choose that directly.
It happens quietly. A hard conversation gets delayed
because the timing is bad. Then a feeling gets shoved back
down because there is too much going on and an excuse sounds
reasonable enough to use again. After enough time passes, the
thing you were tolerating becomes part of the architecture
of your life at that point. Looking normal is not the same
as living well. That was a painful realization
for me because it removed some of the hiding places.
Normal did not save me from my own decisions or repair the
relationships I had damaged. It could not make addiction
disappear, erase the past, or clean up the wreckage.
I could chase the image all I wanted, but image does not
create self respect. Honesty did more for me than
normal ever could not because honesty made life easy.
It gave me a starting point. For once, I could name where I
was, what had happened, what I had done, what hurt, what I
needed to own, and what I did not want to keep repeating.
There is pain in that kind of truth, but there is also relief.
Pretending takes more energy than people admit.
It keeps you managing rooms, opinions, appearances, and the
distance between who you are and who you're trying to look like.
Honesty narrows that distance. It does not fix a whole life in
one day. Most real change is not that
dramatic. It may look like sitting in the
car after a hard conversation and realizing you did not react
the old way. Another time.
It may be the moment you finally admit that what you called anger
was grief with nowhere to go. Growth can also show up when
another person's needs make you uncomfortable and instead of
judging them, you ask yourself why Those moments rarely look
impressive. They may not even feel like
progress while they are happening.
Still, something shifts. The old definition of normal
starts cracking. You stop laughing off What hurt
discomfort no longer proves someone else is wrong.
The mask stops being mistaken for the person.
For me, growth has required that separation.
I have had to ask What was the mask?
What was the truth? What helped me survive and what
I actually want to keep. Those questions are
uncomfortable. They are also the beginning of a
life that is not built around performing.
The more I sit with this, the more important it feels to
separate normal from healthy. Silence can be normal in a
family where nobody wants conflict.
Yelling can become the accepted language of emotion.
Drinking too much, Working too much.
Avoiding accountability or pretending nothing happened can
all become familiar if people repeat them long enough.
Familiarity does not make any of it healthy.
On the other side, people get labeled as abnormal for reasons
that have nothing to do with harm.
A different rhythm, a body that needs more rest, a mind that
processes information differently, grief that takes
longer than expected, recovery that refuses to move in a
straight line, or a story that does not fit the clean version
others prefer can all make people uncomfortable.
That discomfort does not mean the person is broken.
It means the room may need more understanding than judgment.
The truth is, a lot of people support difference in theory
until difference asks something from them.
Compassion sounds good until it requires patience, flexibility,
inconvenience, or the humility to admit that someone else's
reality is not imaginary just because it is not yours.
That is where accessibility and dignity connect to everyday
life. Ramps, doors, captions,
schedules, chairs, lighting, noise, transportation, and the
physical design of room all matter.
So does the attitude behind them.
Are we willing to believe people when they say the current setup
does not work for them? Or do we make them prove their
struggle before we consider changing anything?
When a person has to keep proving that their needs are
legitimate, the message underneath can be brutal.
Belonging becomes conditional. You are welcome as long as you
do not require much. Your life matters until it
interrupts the way things were already built.
The burden falls on the person who needs support instead of the
people who could help create a more thoughtful space.
No one should have to earn dignity by being easy to
understand. That applies to disability, and
it reaches beyond it. Trauma recovery, grief, mental
health, regret rebuilding, and the long process of learning how
to live differently all belong in this conversation.
Anyone who has felt measured against a picture they never
agreed to pose for knows how heavy that can get.
At the same time, I do not want this message to become a way
around responsibility. Challenging the world's
definition of normal does not give every behavior a free pass.
What shaped me matters, and what came out of me still has
consequences. Shame is not the answer, but
accountability cannot be thrown away with it.
That is the adult part of the conversation.
It would be easier to say the world was wrong so I do not have
to change. That is not honesty.
Calling it truth would be just another hiding place.
Real honesty can hold more than one truth at a time.
Pain can explain a pattern without excusing the damage.
Needs can deserve respect while actions still require ownership.
The measuring stick I inherited may have been flawed and I am
still responsible for what I build next.
That is not a contradiction to me.
That is maturity. A lot of growth happens in that
uncomfortable middle space. One part of you understands why
you adapted the way you did. Another part knows you cannot
keep calling every old reaction protection.
At some point, survival has to become something more honest or
it turns into a prison with familiar furniture.
That is why the definition of normal cannot be the final
question. It is only the doorway.
Once you question it, something has to replace it.
For me, the better word is integrity.
Integrity does not mean perfection, and it does not
require every part of life to be clean, impressive, or easy to
explain. It means the outside and the
inside start moving closer together.
The story you tell yourself becomes more truthful.
Your actions begin lining up with the person you say you want
to be. That kind of life may not look
normal to everyone else. I am becoming less concerned
with that. For anyone listening, I would
not start by asking whether your life looks normal.
That question has probably already taken enough from
people. Start with honesty.
Instead. Is the life you are living
telling the truth about who you are, what you carry, what you
need, and what you are responsible for?
Now? That question has weight, but it
also has mercy. It does not demand that you
solve everything today. The invitation is simply to stop
lying long enough to see where you actually are.
Maybe something you called normal has been hurting you.
A role you learn to play may no longer fit.
Pretending could be the reason you are so tired.
Your past may explain more than you wanted to admit, and now the
work is separating explanation from excuse.
When you see that clearly, try not to turn it into a weapon
against yourself. Self honesty is not self hatred.
Accountability is not shame. There's a way to look directly
at your life without tearing yourself apart.
That matters because a lot of people cannot stay in the
conversation once it gets specific.
They can admit in a vague way that nobody is perfect.
The defensive reaction shows up when a real pattern gets named.
I understand that specific truth feels personal because it is
personal. It touches the places or where
the story we tell about ourselves does not fully match
the way we have been living. Still, that is where change
begins. It does not start in a polished
performance of being fine or a broad statement about life being
hard. Change starts when the truth
becomes specific enough to do something with it.
The next step may be one conversation, one boundary, one
apology, one request for help, or one decision not to repeat
what was handed to you. It could be allowing yourself to
receive support without treating support like proof that you
failed. Whatever it is, it probably will
not look dramatic from the outside.
Real growth often happens where nobody is clapping.
It happens in private decisions, quiet pauses, and the space
between an old reaction and a new response.
Growth is choosing honesty, even when the mask would be easier.
A life does not need to look normal to be worth living.
It needs to be real enough that you can stop abandoning yourself
to fit inside someone else's expectations.
That is where I keep landing. I do not want a life that only
looks acceptable from a distance.
The people closest to me deserve the real version, not just the
managed one. Growth has to matter more than
image. When I catch myself repeating
something only because it is familiar, I want enough honesty
to say that may be what I learned, but it is not what I
want to keep. Passing on.
That kind of honesty changes the whole conversation.
Normal loses its grip. The question becomes less about
matching the world's picture and more about building a life you
can stand behind. So what is the definition of
normal? I still do not think there is
one clean answer. Maybe that is the point.
The word has carried too many expectations, too many
judgments, and too many inherited stories to be trusted
without examination. For me, the better question is
not whether I am normal. The better question is whether I
am honest. Honesty asks me to look at where
I came from, what hurt me, what I have done with that hurt, what
I need, what I need to change, and what kind of life I actually
want to build. That is the work.
No one is normal. That is not a defect to me.
It is the point. Every person carries something.
People adapt in ways others may never fully understand.
Most of us have parts of our story that do not fit neatly
into the picture we thought life was supposed to become.
The goal is not to sand down every rough edge until we become
easier for the world to accept. A better goal is becoming honest
enough to stop abandoning ourselves.
If this episode hit something in you, sit with it.
Look at the version of normal you have been chasing.
Ask where it came from, what it has cost, and whether it is
helping you live honestly or keeping you stuck inside a life
that only looks acceptable from the outside.
That's under the surface. Not to redefine normal for
everyone else, but to question the definitions we have been
carrying without examination. If this chapter brought up
memories of feeling misunderstood, judged, or
pressured to become someone easier for the world to accept,
you are not alone. Normal is a moving target.
Honesty is not. Sometimes the most important
step is realizing that the goal was never to fit perfectly into
someone else's picture. It was to build a life that is
true enough to stand behind. Just a reminder, the stories and
conversations in this podcast are for informational and
personal reflection only. Nothing shared here should be
taken as medical, legal, or professional advice.
Always speak with a qualified professional about your own
personal situation. Thank you for listening to No
One Is Normal. If today's message resonated
with you, you can find the book No One Is Normal on Amazon and
Kindle and explore more resources at www.bradhhill.com
or www.nooneisnormal.co. Remember, you weren't meant to
be normal, you were meant to be you.