Ten Warning Signs of "Normality"

borrowed and edited from Janet Foner.

Mad scientists are working around the clock to discover the cure for "normality," a serious and persistent "chronic mental illness"" afflicting much of the general population. Support Coalition International, an alliance led by psychiatric survivors and open to the public, has become very concerned recently as a "norm-demic" has hit the streets, forcing many people formerly safe from this afflicton to recognize that they, too, have caught the dreaded disease.

Fortunately, our scientists have been able to uncover the ten warning signs of "normality."

Take this free self-test:

1. DISHONESTY: You will hold back the full truth, and sometimes even LIE, though the person you're talking to is well-past fifteen-sixteen, and should have developed the attitude, 'If it's a person I should care about, they don't want to hurt me. If it's a person who does want to hurt me, I should not care what they say,' before that age group.

2. OVERLY PROPER: You always do the proper thing - never anything unusual, playful, spontaneous, "different", wild, or creative, if you can help it. You believe playing and being silly or happy are beneath your dignity and only for children. You have a psych trick label of "Dursley Syndrome."

3. LIMITED EXPRESSION: You always act nice even if you can't stand the person to whom you're talking. You never say fully you're thinking, but it does appear to show with lack of interest mixed with condescension. Your diagnosis: "inappropriate expression."

4. RIGHT: You always do everything right _wear the "right clothes", say the "right thing", associate only with the "right people" - you know there is only one right way, and it's you way. You are diagnosed as "conformity prone."

5. BORING: Your conversations, life and living space are dull and boring, and your lawn is always manicured no matter what. In the more advanced stages you have much inner "lifelessness" and "flat affect" - in other words, you are one ot the "walking dead." Your psych cia trick label is "hyper-inactivity."

6. OBEDIENT: You always try not to offend anyone, especially those in authority - your security seems to depend on that. So therefore you are willing to put expediency ahead of principles. Your psychiatric label is "adjustment prone/adjustment reaction."

7. GULLIBLE: You believe that the doctor always knows best, that the media is telling the truth (major newspapers always print the facts, right?), and that the medical model of ?mental illness" has been proven scientifically. Your diagnoses is "normal naivete' disorder."

8. AVOID FEELINGS: You are out of touch with yourself, with the natural world, and with what is going on with other people. It has become too hard to face how others are being oppressed, so you choose a more comfortable path. TV starts to look very, very good. You are labeled with severe blinder-itis."

9. DON"T TRUST YOURSELF: You learned in school that it's important to always pay attention to those in charge and not to trust your own thinking. You learned to "play the game," and you are still doing that. You believe your own lies. You have an advanced case of "schoolmania," which, if not stopped in its early stages can lead to severe overwork and, in advanced stages, "corporate brown-nasal-itis."

10. INDOORISM: You lost touch with wildness in nature, and within your own strong feelings. You do not rebel against ecological destruction. Label: "Tame."

DON'T PANIC: If you have two or more of these signs, within any lunar cycle, it is not too late. Read Dendron News, support one another, get out into nature and especially rake action to stop psychiatric oppression before serious persistent "Normality" sets in.