What's Normal?

Repeating again and again, for the past few months I did not experience any attacks or negative episodes. But what I really meant was I did not even experience feelings of anxiousness, sadness, or stress. Things were pretty chill, and my mental health is stable. Until yesterday, I had this feeling inside of me. The feeling of something crushing up my heart and stomach, unable to get oxygen in or out of my lungs, and the urge of being out of control in any way possible. I got pretty confused. I'm not sure if this is "normal". 

What is normal? It is totally normal to be experiencing emotions, good or bad. It's our ability and blessing to be experiencing emotions as humans. We experience happiness, sadness, anxiousness, tiredness, and many more hundreds of different emotions that we haven't even explored or found a word to it yet. We may be experiencing them daily, occasionally, or sometimes it happens unconsciously. What about people with mental illness? What is normal to them? If you're looking for an evidence-based definition of what's normal, it is normal for people with mental illness to experience extreme emotions that they are unable to control. What is normal to me then? I'm unable to answer my own question. I don't know if what I'm experiencing is normal healthy emotions or normal mental illness symptoms. 

Normalize mental illness, normalize therapy. These are the slogans/catchphrases you always see when it comes to advocating for mental health. Normalize mental illness so people who are suffering from it won't feel like they are problematic monsters that are different from others. Normalize it so people who are suffering will not feel alone when they can relate to each other. But, how do you tell them "hey, it's totally normal to be mentally ill and experiencing distress symptoms" - but it's not as normal where you can ignore your illness completely (or see them as healthy emotions when they are not)? When is it the right time/situation/context to tell someone that what they are experiencing (self-harm, suicidal thoughts, panic attacks, etc.) is normal and when is not? We already feel bad for having all these symptoms, the last thing we want to hear is someone telling us that we're abnormal. The key here is control. Emotions that are out of our control is to be considered unhealthy emotions, and if you're diagnosed with a mental illness, they can be considered as your symptoms. My question is, how do you know if you're in control? How do you know that you're not exactly in control but in denial? My answer is, when you have doubts or you're already asking the questions that I mentioned, let it be. Don't push yourself too hard, it's okay that you don't feel like being in control sometimes. 

So, am I experiencing an attack again? Or am I just feeling anxious or stressed? I will need time to figure out and feel normal again. Since I'm confident that I'm at the stage of healing, I will need to start embracing them as my healthy emotions (regardless of good or bad) instead of seeing them as symptoms. 

"This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor... Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond" 

- Rumi

(The Body Keeps The Score, Bassel Van Der Kolk)

@wattneypoetry

Good luck.