I must have had that thought run through my mind a dozen times a day when I was quitting smoking. So, so many weird sensations, from twitching to coughing worse than I ever did when I was smoking, to off-the-charts fidgeting. Is this normal?
So much second-guessing, too: Is everyone this angry all the time when they quit? Is it typical to want to punch random strangers? Is there a good reason why eating ice cream for dinner sounds perfectly rational? Should I be on the verge of tears from this stupid commercial with the puppy or the call to grandma? Is this normal?
Over and over, every time I rode out a craving or encountered a trigger or tried to cope with stress without the help of my usual nicotine fix, I wondered if I was doing it right; if I was quitting right. If anyone else was going through what I was going through.
If I’d only known then what I know now. Short answer? Yes. Yes, all of those things are normal.
We’re all different people, and even when we share common experiences, our own personalities and histories and circumstances help shape our reactions to those experiences. We don’t all go through things the same way, even if we’re all going through the same things. And that’s cool. Life would be kind of cookie-cutter boring if we all experienced the same things in the same way, right?
But that’s a good thing to remind ourselves of when we interact with people who might—on the surface, at least—be going through something we’ve already been through, or know something about. The temptation to dole out advice or expect certain reactions from them is strong; we forget that we’re not always able to know how someone else is processing something, or what makes sense to them (or for them). We’re not in their heads; we don’t (really) know their lives. And just because something worked for us doesn’t mean it will work for them—people have their own ways of doing things, or might be struggling with factors (hot buttons, histories, personal struggles) that are invisible to us. Just because we’ve been down the same road doesn’t mean we’ve actually walked in their shoes.
So the next time you’re frustrated in your efforts to help someone, or baffled by someone’s reaction to something you’ve said or done, or just confused by the course of action someone’s decided to take, take a minute to remember that your normal might not be their normal. Their normal might not even seem to live in the same neighborhood as your normal.
Relax: you’re both perfectly normal, and so is any confusion you might be experiencing. We don’t always get each other. One person’s “weird as Hell” is someone else’s “perfectly normal” and that’s...well, that’s perfectly normal too.
Who’s Your Little GUS Buddy?
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