Warning Signs of Normality
Mar. 7th, 2009 02:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
birdspiritlandThis is something that we've got on a poster in our new apartment. It was distributed by Support Coalition International, and though it's amusing, there's also enough meat to it to make me really think.
I haven't read through the group's entire site, so I don't know how much of the rest of their stuff I agree with, but I do really like this:
Ten Warning Signs of "Normality"
by Janet Foner, Support Coalition co-coordinator
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 affliction 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. Cool: You're cool, you hold everything in and always put "a good face on it"--you never cry or laugh much, or show emotion in any way, certainly not in puclic. Your psychiatric label is "tearlessnicity".
2. Serious: 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 are beneath your dignity and only for children. You have a psychiatric label of "still upper lippity".
3. Nice: You always act nice even if you can't stand the person to whom you're talking. You never say what you're really thinking. Your diagnosis: "inappropriate smiling".
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 your 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 of the "walking dead". Your psychiatric 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, and that the media is always telling the truth (major newspapers always print the facts, right?). Your diagnosis 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 asskissingitis".
10. Indoorism: You lost touch with the 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. Join SCI, read Dendron News, support one another, get out into nature, and especially take action to stop psychiatric oppression before serious persistent "normality" sets in.
I haven't read through the group's entire site, so I don't know how much of the rest of their stuff I agree with, but I do really like this:
Ten Warning Signs of "Normality"
by Janet Foner, Support Coalition co-coordinator
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 affliction 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. Cool: You're cool, you hold everything in and always put "a good face on it"--you never cry or laugh much, or show emotion in any way, certainly not in puclic. Your psychiatric label is "tearlessnicity".
2. Serious: 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 are beneath your dignity and only for children. You have a psychiatric label of "still upper lippity".
3. Nice: You always act nice even if you can't stand the person to whom you're talking. You never say what you're really thinking. Your diagnosis: "inappropriate smiling".
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 your 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 of the "walking dead". Your psychiatric 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, and that the media is always telling the truth (major newspapers always print the facts, right?). Your diagnosis 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 asskissingitis".
10. Indoorism: You lost touch with the 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. Join SCI, read Dendron News, support one another, get out into nature, and especially take action to stop psychiatric oppression before serious persistent "normality" sets in.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
ONOES!!!!I iz abnormal!!!1!!1!eleventyone!
Date: 2009-03-07 11:54 pm (UTC)Smurfistance is futile. You will be assmurfillated.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-08 02:01 am (UTC)I read a bit of their website, and while I think I agree with the general idea, their writing seems rather rabble-rousing. Still, the test makes sense.
And because I can't resist responding to test-like things:
1. Hell no. Crying out loud for an hour on a plane? Check. Laughing like a crazy person on the street and sticking my face in a puddle? Check.
2. Hanging upside down from a tree (and unknowingly making the police worry)? Check.
5. I like to think I'm not boring...
7. Usually not. Also applies to this test.
4, 6, 8, 9 - likewise no.
I need to work on 3 and 10 though.
[off-topic: I'd love to have Jenka do something with Dimo before Ivona, but don't know what. *fails*]
no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 12:19 am (UTC)love, us
no subject
Date: 2009-09-27 03:23 am (UTC)Of course, I'm also the one who used to randomly come to class dressed up in full mad scientist gear...