The New Normal

I was reminded this week of the phrase " the new normal".

It can be used when it is important to anchor a new reality, usually after some kind of physical or emotional trauma. It may also be used after any life transition. The “new normal” paradigm allows for the realization to filter into our consciousness that things will never be the same again; they will never be “normal” again, or at least not the normal that we once knew.

The new normal is the phase after we have dealt with the immediate emergency that has occurred; when we have ensured the safety of ourself and others and we can begin to look around us with curiosity. The “new normal” is our reality that we can create or design in whichever way we know how, during times when we are feeling stronger and more able to do so. From here we can continue to build on this until it becomes second nature: our new normal.

Of course, we are all reminded of what is not normal in the Christchurch area following the natural disaster, and how incredibly difficult it will be for most people to transition to a new way of life in what will become a new city: a new ‘normal’ for the people of Canterbury. I do hope that in the midst of counseling and trauma support programmes, that the ‘new normal’ paradigm may help some people towards their recovery.

Far from the trauma of earthquake recovery, I was assessing the new normal in my household. My boys play far too many hours of playstation in the weekend: this is a new normal in my home. Somehow unwittingly I’ve allowed guns and murder to creep into the lounge room every Saturday afternoon. Another new normal, is adjusting to turning on heat pumps most of the year, not air conditioning, after years spent in a subtropical country. The most difficult new normal is my adjustment to having Teen1 come home stoned or drunk most weekends and after seeing him into his room, turning out my light and going back to sleep.

That’s not normal. It is not a created or designed normal done from a place of safety and care. It is instead an insidious normal. An insidious normal is a situation when, say, an intelligent, capable woman is subjected to sustained emotional or physical abuse by her partner. Or when a child suffers abuse from family members. Or someone finds that their one beer after work has turned into a dozen every night and more in the weekend and is out of control. The list goes on, and I use it to illustrate how what seems normal can creep up on us and actually be unhealthy and destructive, and how it takes some kind of intervention or shock to show up how abnormal the normal is.

So, a 15 year old coming home stoned during the week and at weekends is not normal: it is totally abnormal surely. Or am I stuffily, conservatively, stupidly missing the point that this IS the new normal in my family/ our society today and really doesn’t mean anything BAD will happen to him? He’s just experimenting, eh?

I’ve just reread some of my earlier posts: “We must let go or it will kill us” of 1 August last year, and “Choice” of 28 July, and in hindsight those posts are full of grand advice, with no actual commitment to changing the norm. I thought I worked so hard last year to change, control, and cope with the chain of events that were choking my life. But now I am not so sure. I think I wanted them all to just go away. Instead of creating a new set of rules and criteria and demands for what will occur or not in my home, I spent too much time trying to shore up the falling walls. I needed to be far more creative and decisive about creating a new, safe normal into my home.

So I will make a bloggy commitment : I will do more than read and talk about drug abuse programmes – I will have my son assessed as soon as possible and will commit to pulling him out of his important first year of NCEA, and put into a drug programme or similar. I will go back to searching for better professional advice. I will more proactively search out alternative schooling and risk behaviour programmes.

I bloggily and wearily hereby commit. At least, I’ll do my bloggy best (this is the internet afterall).

Truth be told, I just want my life to go back to …. Normal? What would you do?