Rejecting normalcy and embracing how we each are uniquely wired

This is an exploration on how trying to fit in hurt me over and over again, and how I am starting to learn how to embrace the way I am in all its beauty.

The world is a beautiful and horrifying place. The internet is also a beautiful and horrifying place. I was just scrolling through notes and stumbled upon this one by

Eliza Butler

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I will share a cliff notes version of my equally disturbing experiences with mental health professionals. Including, being sent to my mother’s therapist for a point in time (huge conflict of interest), being diagnosed with anxiety after being sexual abused (no one thought to ask more questions as to why the sudden anxiety), or the numerous doctors who told me medication was my only hope in having a normal life.

FUCK NORMAL.

I want to highlight what Eliza shared about listening to her body and the courage it takes to listen to ourselves. It took me a long time to find the courage to listen to myself, because my conditioning and upbringing did not show me how to do this or encourage me to figure it out to myself. I believe listening to ourselves is a threat to all of it, specifically normalcy which is what our culture, capitalism, and the patriarchy thrive off of. These systems are fuel by our fear and desire to comply.

But, what even is normal? It is what I dreamed of as a kid, living in a normal family. What did that mean? A family without mental illness? Without abuse? Even without those things present, would my life have been normal?

Normal means fitting it. Normal means going with the crowd. Normal means listening to others above yourself.

At least, this is what normal means to me. How do you define normal?

Trying to fit in

These thoughts are coming on the heels of my leaning into who I am. A highly sensitive human being. I am wired a certain way. I feel deeply, loud noises are not my friend, I do not like too much stimulation, I much rather stay home with a good book than go out into the world to do anything. As I have healed copious amounts of trauma this year, my bandwidth has grown but these things remain relatively true.

I am also leaning into who my people are. My husband would be classified as neurodivergent, and I see similar traits in my son. They think differently and they engage with the world differently than I do. They love stimulation, they love an adventure, they love noise in the background.

I have fought who we all are for a long time. I used to hold a competition between my husband and I. I thought who he is was something I should be striving for. He goes with the flow more easily, and I should too. He loves adventures, and I should too. He loves to be constantly doing things, and I should too.

This created arguments and tension in our relationship, because when I could not measure up to him, it would incite a history of emotions. I did not matter, I was not good enough, I did not measure up. I grew up feeling second to my brother, who everything seemed to come easy for.

Fighting how I am and trying to be normal led me down many dangerous paths. Trying to fit in during high school led me to develop an unhealthy relationship with alcohol at a young age. I was not the life of the party, but I chose a relationship with someone who was, to keep up and loosen up, I drank.

Alcohol helped me cover up my sensitivity. It helped me seem normal. It helped me fit in. But damn, if I didn’t really want to be somewhere I felt safe, with a book in the quiet. I struggled in college because it was more of the same, everyone wanted to go out and party, and I did it to fit in, but it wasn’t where I wanted to be nor what felt best to me.

As I settle more into my own body, I realize I am how I am. There is a lot of peace in that and it is also after a decade of trying to land into my body and my experiences. I have chosen many avenues to figure out how to be here, it took time for me to genuinely want to land inside my experience.

Sometimes the ideas we have of ourselves in our head are powerful and convincing. I thought I could endure anything, and I could. I trained myself as a child to brace for the worst because I did not know what to expect from my mother. I learned how to be ready for anything and deal with what came my way. But my body’s wisdom in protecting myself took me out of my body because it was the only way to endure so much pain at a young age.

This protective mechanism of disassociation stop serving me years ago, it started to become more harmful than helpful. I couldn’t connect with myself, within my relationships, or with my desires or dreams. I wandered through life grasping each next thing thinking it would be the cure to my discomfort, but I never found it.

Embracing my wiring and that of those around me

Motherhood helped me to land into my body by force more than a choice. Motherhood showed me I had to be here, I had to presence myself to this little being who needs so much from me. I did my best but spending my whole life trying to be normal and living outside my body didn’t make it a smooth transition.

I’ll skip over the first year because I am not sure I want to unpack it all in this piece. But well into my son’s first year, I had to admit how much I was struggling, emotionally, mentally, physically, and I had to ask for help. I started the long road of connecting to my body and moving through trauma.

A year later, I am here writing to you. I can say how I am wired differently than most people, than my closest people, and how embracing this is helping set us all free.

This brings me to motherhood and to raising our children. From his birth, I notice signs in what society may call differences in my kid. He doesn’t sleep, he wakes often, he has an abundance of energy…all of these things true from the start. All my pregnancy, I dreamed of a sweet and gentle boy who would have this calming presence about him.

My son is a firecracker, he moves wildly about, he runs around, his physical capabilities are slightly terrifying, he holds little fear and will embrace any challenge. He is also, sometimes, sweet and gentle. But settling into embracing who he is took me time. I wanted him to be a certain way because that would have made my life easier. A calmer kid would have fit more with my temperament.

He is who he is. And I have to parent him based on who he is and how he shows up in the world. My parents generation could not do that. There was no room in my home for my sensitivity. I was often told I was making up things I felt in my body.

I do not want this for my son. I want him to embrace how he is uniquely wired. I want to make space to hold him as he is, even if it sometimes challenges me to step out of my comfort zone.

I want to parent him based on what I see in front of me, not through my own lens, or conditioning, or how I show up in the world. He is his own person, and he gets to move through the world in his unique way.

I refuse to try and make him normal. I refuse to set him up for failure. I refused to let the system of society tell him he needs to be different. I mean he is going to hear it eventually, but I want to make choices for him that allow him to embrace who he is instead of trying to fit into some mold he could never fit into…like traditional school for example.

I want my son to be able to trust his body and live inside of his experiences. Kids naturally do this, so it is more about showing up for him in a way where I do not change that experience for him. I show him how to listen to his body, its cues, and its needs.

My son (and partner) prefers noise in the background, it drives me crazy. Less crazy than it used to, I used to tell myself my husband needed to learn how to be in the quiet. I have come to realize how that experience feels wildly different to them than it does to me. While my tolerance for noise has grown, it is not my preferred state and it is more distracting to me where it is focusing for them.

I am figuring out how to listen to my needs and hold space for them to honor theirs. Sometimes it feels like how I am wired is directly against how they are wired, but together we see the whole picture of the world and with my partner, we make a great team because of our differences, not in spite of them.

I genuinely could go on and on, but I will pause these thoughts here for now. I want to hear from you, in the comments or in email, about what this brings up inside of you. Here are some questions to reflect upon…

What does normal mean to you?

How do you move through this world?

How do your children?

Are these ways different?

How do you cope with the differences?

Thank you for joining me in this conversation.

Love, Emma

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