Variation and Deviation: What Is Typical vs. What Is Desirable

Posted on by Astrid

For today’s Friday Faithfuls challenge we’re encouraged to write about what “normal” means to us. I am reminded of the opening phrase to one of the Project 2025 training videos. Mind you, I didn’t see the actual video, but listened to an episode of the podcast, The Ace Couple, walking the listener through it. The goal of the video was to educate Project 2025 supporters about the language leftists (and presumably anyone else not in agreement with their garbage) use and what we (yeah, I’m one of those pesky leftists!) supposedly mean.

The opening phrase was: “I’m just a normal American woman.” The speaker then went on to describe what she supposedly would be called by the Left. The exact wording, I can’t remember but it included “cisgendered” (her words, never mind that it’s “cisgender” without the “-ed” ending), “ethnoimperialist” (a term I’ve never heard of but then again I’m white and assume this is just a parody phrase to say she is too), probably “heterosexual” and “pronouns she/her”.

Now what’s “normal” about all this? Statistically speaking, being straight and cis (which means, for those not aware, that your gender assigned at birth aligns with your gender identity, so the opposite of trans) are indeed “normal”, in that the vast majority of the population falls within this category. White, globally speaking, definitely is not: the majority of the world’s population are BIPOC (Black/Brown, indigenous, or people of color).

I was also reminded of an open discussion I had several months ago with a temp worker who happens to be gay. We were discussing sexual and gender diversity and relating it to neurodiversity. The neurodiversity movement says that autism and other neuropsychiatric conditions are merely a variation of the norm, not a deviation from it. The difference is that variants are statistically less common but not less valuable, whereas deviants carry a connotation of “less than”. Autistic/neurodivergent people are different, not less in a similar way that people under the LGBTQ+ umbrella are different, not less.

Now I would like to say that no-one is “less” as a person. However, some human conditions, traits and behaviors are both abnormal and undesirable.

I do understand that what are considered “deviations” from the norm rather than mere variations, changes over time. Autism, commonly, is still seen as a disorder in need of a cure and there’s hardly any protection against discrimination based on it. Homosexuality, thankfully, not anymore. At least, not in the Netherlands. This doesn’t mean gays don’t face discrimination, but in that case, society sees that it’s the person being homophobic who’s in the wrong, not the gay person.

I am a strong supporter of both neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ rights, and a member of both communities, for clarity’s sake. Though I am white, I try to learn about race issues. I may not statistically speaking be “just a normal woman” and thank goodness in this era I’m not American. However, I am a human being and this means I deserve human rights.

Back to Normal?

Posted on by Astrid

It’s been nearly a year since the coronavirus pandemic hit the Netherlands. Today, I’m participating in one of Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop prompts. It asks us whether anything is back to normal yet. The short answer is: it depends on your reference point.

Last summer, we were pretty much back to as normal as you get it. We were still social distancing, but shops, restaurants and cafes were open. There were even plans to allow for festivals and the like. And then the second wave hit.

On December 15, the Netherlands entered into the second lockdown. Restaurants and cafes had already been closed sometime in November. In December, schools, including elementary schools and nurseries, closed. Daycare centers and elementary schools opened again the second week of February. However, non-essential shops were also closed. By January, a curfew was issued, allowing people to only be on the streets for certain exceptional reasons from 9PM until 4:30AM.

It is supposed to be a strict lockdown. That being said, this time around it feels easier to me than our first lockdown. After all, even though that one was said to be less strict, and in many ways it was, care facilities were not allowing visitors then. They are again now. Also, physical therapists, dentists and other medical contact professionals are allowed to remain open throughout this lockdown.

On Tuesday, our prime minister held a press conference. In it, he said that, though infection rates didn’t warrant it, society did need a loosening of the lockdown. From next week on, secondary schools will be re-opening part-time. Hairdressers, beauticians and other non-medical contact professionals are also allowed to start working again. In addition, shops are now able to allow at most two customers into the shop at a time. You’re required to register a set timeframe to shop. This will supposedly help small businesses. I already heard a joke about a major budget store being booked full till July of 2023.

Honestly, I’m rather pessimistic about us going back to “normal”, whatever that may be. I’m pretty sure we’ll enter a third wave of the virus in April and that’s assuming the current infection rate is down enough to re-open. Like the prime minister said, it really isn’t. We still get over 4000 new cases of COVID each day.

Last week, my husband Googled the ultimate question: when will COVID end? He saw an article dating back to mid-December predicting that, if by late January, new cases would be down to 1200 a day, COVID would be over by the end of 2021. For the record: new cases were almost ten times that number by then. Vaccination is also going much slower than expected. I predict it’ll be at least the summer of 2022 before we’re back to whatever semblance of normal remains.

Mama’s Losin’ It

New Normal

Posted on by Astrid

Earlier today, Stevie Turner wrote a great piece on adjusting to the new normal of serious illness. In her case, it’s cancer. I have so far been able to avoid serious physical illness, but I get the idea of adjusting to a “new normal”.

In 2007, as regular readers may know, I suffered a serious mental health crisis. It was probably autistic burnout, though it got various labels over the years. I was 21 at the time and attending university and living on my own.

In the early months of my psychiatric hospital stay that followed the crisis, I was convinced I could go back to college, university or work and living more or less independently if I just had a little more support. I rejected the first place offered to me because I wouldn’t be allowed to cook in my own apartment. This, looking back, is ridiculous! After all, now, thirteen years later, I live in a group home with 24-hour care. I cannot cook, clean or even do some personal care tasks without help.

Now to be honest, I at the time didn’t have a realistic picture of what living in my own apartment in supported housing would be like. The training home I went to before living independently, had a 1:4 staff/client ratio during most of the day. That’s pretty high and it allowed for staff to help with most household tasks. If I went into supported housing in my own apartment, I’d be expected to clean it all by myself. The fact that I wouldn’t be allowed to cook, was understandable, as there wouldn’t be the staff to supervise me.

Then again, I thought I could handle a low staff/client ratio. It was 1:7 on week days at the resocialization ward and 1:14 on week-ends. I did okay with this. Now, not so much. The staff/client ratio here is 1:6 at the least and I get one-on-one for several hours during the day.

I often look back at myself before my crisis. When I was eighteen, I attended mainstream high school despite being blind. The autism or other issues hadn’t even been diagnosed yet. I coped with classrooms of 30’ish students with just one teacher. Sure, I had meltdowns multiple times a week, sometimes multiple times a day, but I somehow survived. Now, I can barely handle having my coffee in the living room without my one-on-one present to calm me if I start melting down. Oh my, this feels sick. I feel shame admitting this. Yet it’s my new normal. Whether I’m just lazy and manipulative and unwilling to be independent or I’m genuinely unable, it’s the way it is.

I often feel sad when I am reminded of my old life. I often dream that I go back to university. I most likely never will.

That being said, I’m also grateful for what I do have. I am forever grateful that my staff and behavior specialist saw the need for one-on-one. I am grateful whenever I can do a small activity, like this morning I made clay punch-out figures. Back in the psych hospital, I often couldn’t blog even once a week. Now I blog almost everyday.

The most frustrating aspect of my “new normal” is not knowing why. I constantly second-guess myself, wondering if I’m truly such a terribly manipulative attention-seeker. That thought is scary. Worse yet is the fear that this might be some type of neurological thing, that I might actually be deteriorating. There is apparently no reason to think this, but it’s still on my mind. Then again, it is what it is and I’ve got to deal with it.

Normal

Posted on by Astrid

This past Friday, the prompt for Five Minute Friday was “normal”. I didn’t have anything to write on the topic then, but I do now. Here goes.

Today I listened to a meditation on Insight Timer. The teacher said your observing self is like the sky (or heavens), while your thoughts, feelings etc. are like the weather. No matter how bad the weather gets, the sky remains the same. It can withstand even the darkest thunderclouds.

This is maybe how we need to look at ourselves in this time of COVID-19. We are told to adjust to the “new normal”. Even though our “intelligent” lockdown or stay at home order ended last week, I still cannot have visitors at the care facility and just found out the day center won’t reopen till October. I’m not sure how I feel about this. Well, about the day center. I know how I feel about the no-visitors policy, but that one might change this week.

Like Kate, the FMF hostess, I somehow settled in. I actually love being at the home for day activities and don’t mind not seeing people from other homes that much. I miss my husband, but I’m adjusting to that too.

This is where the meditation comes in again. I mean, no matter how hard life gets, I’ll manage. My thoughts may be dark, my feelings bleak, but I will ultimately be able to keep going.