The Tree: A Subjective Normal

*Everything I write is from my own personal experience. I am not a medical professional or therapist. What you read is my journey*

Mental health is a subjective reality that we treat as objective. We try to get someone as close to the average line as possible through therapy and drugs that we miss out on the great opportunity to take a person for who they are and help them exist within that reality. The line should be harm to self others, and once we can help a person stay within that baseline then we should allow them to explore who they are and learn to exist in their reality not force a societal idea of normal on them. Imagine need to go to the grocery store for some ice cream -who does not like ice cream? You locked your front door and head to your car. Out of the corner of your eye you notice your neighbor standing below a tree in his yard, mostly naked, and not moving. You curiously stare and call out; he does not reply. You notice something in the yard in front of him. Concerned for your neighbor you approach and see a sign reading, “I am a tree.” What would you do? I argue that the better question is, “How does it matter?”

In that instant the only information you have is that your neighbor thinks they are a tree and that no one is being harmed. Any other inference from this is an extrapolation in predictive analysis. Your only choice here is to leave your neighbor to their own devices or impose your own perspective of normal on him by seeking professionals who will force him to be “normal”. Most, in this scenario, would justify their decision by saying they “got him help”. However, if he was harming no one and was no harm to himself, shouldn’t he be allowed to stand as a tree?

Society makes these types of judgements objective -there is a right and wrong answer- rather than subjective -what is the immediate situation. No matter how good one is at their craft predicting behavior is just that, a prediction -read that as gamble. The entirety of your life experience has told you that to think you are a tree is abnormal and should be treated because one day that “disease” might cause others harm, thus your entire response to this type of scenario is going to be subjective to your view of normal.  Your reactions are going to, in most cases, infringe on someone else’s subjective view of reality. Of course, I am talking deconstructionism, existentialism, and nihilism here -what is real? However, to have a concrete understanding of our environment we must, to a degree, deconstruct our idea of what is real or deconstruct someone else’s. Wars are fought because there is this belief that there cannot be two congruent philosophies at one time.

We have taken the subjective and made it objective. Specifically, when it comes to people -or even animals. Normal is subjective, except in extreme circumstances when it becomes objective. We must also resist the urge to impose our view of reality on another out of concern for them -which most often is really our inability to rationalize that someone else views the world different than us. To do all this requires emotional intelligence and empathy. The common thread in all my poetry is just that, empathy. It is an attempt to draw in multiple perspectives to show my own perspective. It is not right, nor normal, that I was sexually abused as a child. But that is now my reality, that is now the perspective that I see the world from. I must learn to marry that reality with a blue sky, green grass, and the touch of a gentle breeze on my face. The trick is to avoid the distraction of making sense -that is a dead-end quest. Much in life is a waste of energy to make sense of. Rather the task is for me to understand my reality.   Just as I would expect you, not to make a judgement of your treeish neighbor, but to make an earnest attempt to understand your neighbors’ behavior. Once you have done the required work to understand then you can make an objective call on the behavior. Unless, I understand why the sky is blue it is useless for me to make any judgement about the sky other than a poetic judgement about how it makes me feel -though, I would argue to make that poetic judgement of feeling I have to understand myself.

Mental health is not complicated. We complicate it. Just like an arm, or leg, or any other appendage the brain can be broken. When broken it is necessary to heal. But when it is healed it is useless to wonder why it broke and useful to learn how to operate your appendage with the new quirks. Or more simply put, after your brain heals the scars left behind are normal and are part of you. That do not make you lesser or greater than your fellow man, they make you.

Normal is subjective.

*There is a necessity to, at times, understand how something happened so that you can apply the necessary lessons to avoid future events such as the ones that harmed you. But this is entirely different than trying to learn why, as it is understanding how. Which is a healthy action to take. Only the inner workings of a person can explain why they did anything, and of course that requires a certain level of self-awareness. It is a fools errand to think “why” will heal. Healing is internal and entirely about you.