Am I normal?
We all have days where we feel like we just don't fit in. You can't put your finger on why, but you just get out of bed and feel - well - out of place. Maybe you are having a fat day, a PMT day, or a bad hair day. You might be feeling old, tired or just lonely.
An attack of the doldrums can occur at any time, in response to a cutting comment, stressful life event, or even just your hormones. But when your self esteem is low, you can feel as though you are the only person who can possibly be feeling this way - you're an oddity, even a social misfit.
It's normal to feel this way
It's normal to feel like this sometimes, anyway. So at least you know that box is ticked. What is 'normal' anyway? The dictionary definitions are, "conforming with or constituting a norm or standard or level or type or social norm" and, "being approximately average." How boring is that? Who wants to conform - and who wants to just be average, anyway?
Reasons for feeling alienated
We're bombarded day and night by images and opinions about who and what we should be. We're told what to wear, how much we should weigh, what type of car we should drive, and sold the ideal lifestyle - a make believe fantasy life that the advertising gurus think we should be living.
It's easy to feel that you don't fit in, if you're worried about your small breasts, large bottom, or that because you're a lesbian, or belong to a minority religion, you have no place in this homogenised, identikit vision of life sold to us by the media. You have to remember that the ideals represented on the television, or in fashion magazines are just a vision. They aren't real life; we're just encouraged to aspire to them. Think about this logically, if everybody else really was living this perfect lifestyle, if we were all rich, wearing designer clothes, living in fantastic houses and married to Mr Perfect with two kids - who would the advertisers sell the dream to? We'd all have it.
Leave a comment
To leave a comment, you need to login or register:
Login...
Register...