The Abnormal State

The Outsider

Looking around

every face turns away

Looking down 

I don't belong

Feeling so different

no one to know

Feeling in darkness

for someone to hold

Finding nothing 

But gravel on the ground

Finding something

that knows my pain

Looking up

a new face appears

Looking forward

to a life long friend

The question of what is normal has become the center point on what many high schoolers have been focusing their attention. As a result many people are outcast for a multitude of reasons; whether it be a person's ability to function at a certain mental state, not too smart not to dumb, or just because they look a certain way. This kind of grouping is often referred to as clicks, but, as I know, most of the people who will be reading this blog already know this to be a fact. But the question is, what really is abnormal? Grade school kids put a lot of emphasis on how they perceive others, but the truth is this is too narrow of a window to look at the world.

As I have been going through school I have had a unique perspective on how my peers interact. I like to stay off to the side lines most of the time, looking in on what other people are doing and saying, but then at the same time I decide to jump in to see what it feels like to be in the group. People always seem to feel safer in these groups, but the truth is groups can destroy those who are not part of them...and sometimes even those in them.

"Clicking" forces some people out of groups and pulls others in. This fluctuation is the main source of difference and ultimately abnormality. When people are brought into groups, they begin to share qualities that others share, this soon makes them normal, equal, the same as the people surrounding them. In the same way this also creates difference, pulls people apart and subjects them to scrutiny by peers. This action of emotionless excommunication forces people into isolation, a place where few venture, a place where people become abnormalities in society. Although this occurs by the actions of peers at times, an individual will sometimes choose this path themselves, to avoid having to conform when others feel the need, but in the end, the act of isolation, separation, seclusion, is what makes someone abnormal.

But the thing about abnormality is that it is also about perspective as well. A person who has been shunned from one group often finds another, even if it is the group of people who have no one else to turn to, a group with nothing in common but the fact that very few others seem to share their ideals. Even though many call some strange, some more than naught call many strange. So the truth is everyone is normal, all they need to do is find someone to be normal with...and so is the state of abnormality.