the myth of normal

 transcript is here: 

https://tim.blog/2022/09/09/dr-gabor-mate-myth-of-normal-transcript/ 

 What we think is normal in our society from the point of view of human needs and human evolution is absolutely abnormal. And therefore, when we think of abnormalities in terms of illnesses and dysfunctions and diseases and so on, these are normal responses to abnormal circumstances. And the biggest loss you and I have already talked about. This is a society that from the very beginning, from in utero onwards, put stresses on human beings, that they lose contact with themselves.

And the essence of trauma is loss of contact with yourself, loss of connection to yourself. And that’s reinforced through parenting practices, the parenting advice people get. You and I already talked about that. It is reinforced in the school system where it’s all about competition and evaluation rather than relaxation and learning. We are judged all the time by our externals, like how we look, what we achieve, how smart we are, how fast we are. We’re not accepted for who we are with our flaws and our vulnerabilities. Society caters to those false needs so that for God’s sakes, people are botoxing themselves because they’ve learned that how they are is just not acceptable.

People are on Facebook presenting a false image of themselves because they believe that how they are and who they are is not good enough. We’re sold all these products and are manipulated into all these activities that are all attempts to fulfill some deep hunger in ourselves that is missing because we’ve lost our true selves. We are manipulated into buying products and eating foods that are actually toxically, addictively unhealthy. And this happens with the full awareness, even — not only the awareness, the employment of modern science as to how to get people hooked on cell phones or junk foods. Our politics reflects very traumatized people reaching the top, enacting policies that then create more trauma for large numbers of people. In other words, this is a society that for all its wealth, scientific ingenuity, incredible progress in science and medicine, has fundamentally got disconnected from the essence of what it means to be human beings.

 Kids are stressed because of the conditions of this culture, all the lonely people, as the Beatles sang, all the lonely people. The number of people lonely has doubled in the last 30 years. Britain has appointed a Minister of Loneliness. Loneliness kills. It’s as dangerous as smoking 15 cigarettes a day in terms of causing illness or potentiating illness and death. There’s so many ways in which this culture is abnormal, and it’s causing people to be not well.

And I can’t emphasize enough the importance of communality of connection. We are wired to connect. And in a society that teaches us that our nature is to be aggressive and competitive and individualistic, and even suspicious of others, that goes against our nature. So we have to work our way through those false beliefs and come back to who we really are, which are connected beings really here to be both individuals, to both to be authentic, and to be attached at the same time, so that there shouldn’t be this tragic tension between attachment and authenticity.