Abnormal people: When did you first realise you were....

[KeithD]

I got my Secret Clearance in 1970, as an Army Lt.............couldnt get a Top Secret.......

Luckily, I found a way of keeping the TS and indulging. Again, my story portfolio points to the way.

 

[drobert44]

Luckily, I found a way of keeping the TS and indulging. Again, my story portfolio points to the way.

I had 3 minor traffic tix.......dont mess with the intel spooks.....NAC, whoever that is.......

 

[XerXesXu]

One of the things I've gleaned from being on Lit for a while is that nobody is truly "normal." Some people are just better at hiding it than others.

That fits in with Carl Jung's theory of The Shadow Self.

https://academyofideas.com/2015/12/carl-jung-and-the-shadow-the-hidden-power-of-our-dark-side/

They also have a video on it for those who wish to pursue it further.

An interesting video. A classic of the Analytic School.

I was by instinct and training of the Empirical and Experimental School. In that school "Normal'' is a distribution. There's a concept of standard deviation (SD) from the norm, which swings both ways. Within +1 and -1 SD, you will find the majority of people who are best adapted to prosper in the milieu in which they presently exist. Those outside that group are less well so adapted. Times and the milieu may change - war, famine, autocracy and sycophancy, democracy and freedom of expression - history is replete with examples, and there will be movement between standard deviants, and ultra-deviants. Ultra-Deviants are normal, in fact, they're uncommonly normal, but, as in nature, they're society's insurance policy that a community will be able to survive very extreme changes in the milieu in which it exists.

I would find no consolation in the analytic approach - that you can be changed to suit you're present milieu, a conversion therapy. Has that ever worked? I might in the realisation that I'm normal, just uncommonly so, and bonded to other members as a necessary part of nature's insurance for the survival of my community.

Others say it much better than I, so I'll plagiarise their words - 'You are a Child of the Universe, like the birds and the bees, you have a right to be here."

I realised I was uncommonly normal when I was about 15, and started writing things like the above.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Switches were always a mystery to me, as I've never wanted to be the one sexually dominating a woman. So I can easily understand being dominant or being submissive, but wanting both? You weirdos!

So I'm one of those weirdos. Also, I can imagine any combination of genders, which is perhaps unusual too. Having couples who are both switches is a situation I will often write about.

Since we are taking trips down memory lane, my first exposure was when I was watching Land of the Pharaohs on Million Dollar Movies, Channel 9 in New York. This must have been when I was about eleven in 1966. There is a brief scene near the beginning where Princess Nellifer (Joan Collins) is ordered to be punished by Pharaoh Khufu (Jack Hawkins, really hamming it up). Thus she is taken to the basement and tied to a pillar, and then flogged on the back by some burly flunky. About three seconds of footage, but I found it fascinating. Of course, I thought I was the only person in the world who would think that.

The whole movie is a rather weird, especially the ending when everybody is sealed in Khufu's tomb.

 

[gunhilltrain]

An interesting video. A classic of the Analytic School.

I was by instinct and training of the Empirical and Experimental School. In that school "Normal'' is a distribution. There's a concept of standard deviation (SD) from the norm, which swings both ways. Within +1 and -1 SD, you will find the majority of people who are best adapted to prosper in the milieu in which they presently exist. Those outside that group are less well so adapted. Times and the milieu may change - war, famine, autocracy and sycophancy, democracy and freedom of expression - history is replete with examples, and there will be movement between standard deviants, and ultra-deviants. Ultra-Deviants are normal, in fact, they're uncommonly normal, but, as in nature, they're society's insurance policy that a community will be able to survive very extreme changes in the milieu in which it exists.

I would find no consolation in the analytic approach - that you can be changed to suit you're present milieu, a conversion therapy. Has that ever worked? I might in the realisation that I'm normal, just uncommonly so, and bonded to other members as a necessary part of nature's insurance for the survival of my community.

Others say it much better than I, so I'll plagiarise their words - 'You are a Child of the Universe, like the birds and the bees, you have a right to be here."

I realised I was uncommonly normal when I was about 15, and started writing things like the above.

Well, your community may survive, but you won't. You have a right to be here for only a while. The world's oldest person recently died at the age of 118. That's about the upper limit. Where you go after that varies according to one's own beliefs.

 

[SimonDoom]

The older I get, the more I think "normal" is an unhelpful fiction. It's at best a statistical mean, with a very large standard deviation.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

So I'm one of those weirdos. Also, I can imagine any combination of genders, which is perhaps unusual too. Having couples who are both switches is a situation I will often write about.

Since we are taking trips down memory lane, my first exposure was when I was watching Land of the Pharaohs on Million Dollar Movies, Channel 9 in New York. This must have been when I was about eleven in 1966. There is a brief scene near the beginning where Princess Nellifer (Joan Collins) is ordered to be punished by Pharaoh Khufu (Jack Hawkins, really hamming it up). Thus she is taken to the basement and tied to a pillar, and then flogged on the back by some burly flunky. About three seconds of footage, but I found it fascinating. Of course, I thought I was the only person in the world who would think that.

The whole movie is a rather weird, especially the ending when everybody is sealed in Khufu's tomb.

Ah, the Great Joan Collins... I remember watching a movie called Decadence, long ago, where she was playing a rich woman who had servants... I remember one scene, where she uses her servant as a horse. That woman touched so many of our kinks here

 

[AlexBailey]

I’ve got several ‘abnormalities’ that started early.

A big one was that I always wanted to be dressed in the same clothes as my sister and I often was for kids theater and dance. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it until I heard my parents arguing about it when they didn’t know I was listening. It wasn’t a sexual thing, I just liked the attention people gave me when they thought I was one of the girls.

Later in life it became a sexualized kink when other guys would tease me about being femme or pretty. Not all of them were being mean about it, and I could see and feel some sexual tension and desire. Being ‘wanted’ was something new and some of my first kinky experiences were with guys who wanted a toy to play with.

Many times I felt like the prettiest girl in the room until there was a girl in the room. Young adulthood was rough. I often felt dysphoric and out of place, sometimes suicidal. Luckily I fell in with a bunch of queer and lesbian friends and was able to find comfort in not being alone with my issues.

I’m in my fifties now and I didn’t come to a real understanding of myself until very recently, and I’m still figuring out more all the time.

 

[XerXesXu]

The world's oldest person recently died at the age of 118. That's about the upper limit. Where you go after that varies according to one's own beliefs.

No, it doesn't. Regardless of our beliefs, all our fates are broadly the same, after we die - 'dust to dust, ashes to ashes'. But, you expected me to say that, didn't you?

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Neither the statistical nor the categorical model of normal are valid. The latter denies variation; the former declares the 'normal' is the most common, with variation. But variation is normal, and real data sets always have outliers. The mean and 1 or how many sd you want is still not the 'normal;' it is only a central tendency. The normal is to be different.

And on the above issue, I'm content with my afterlife as an atheist. My bones will be in a documented collection, and I'll continue to teach and research long after my death. I don't expect to be aware of it then, though.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Frankly, I’m not abnormal. It’s the rest of you…

 

[Rob_Royale]

I was pretty young when I realized I was far more interested in checking out the moms than girls my age.

 

[gunhilltrain]

No, it doesn't. Regardless of our beliefs, all our fates are broadly the same, after we die - 'dust to dust, ashes to ashes'. But, you expected me to say that, didn't you?

Actually, I didn't know what you were going to say. There are certainly plenty of people who believe in an afterlife; I'm most familiar with the Christian version. A few of my relatives were definitely like that. Even if believed it when I was about eight or nine because that's what the nuns in my weekly Catholic instructions told me. They had it all worked out with Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, and Limbo, although the latter been somewhat deemphasized recently.

 

[Smuttyandfun]

Frankly, I’m not abnormal. It’s the rest of you…

I think you can have a wicked imagination and still consider yourself to be 'normal.' Whatever normal is.

 

[XerXesXu]

the former declares the 'normal' is the most common, with variation. But variation is normal, and real data sets always have outliers. The mean and 1 or how many sd you want is still not the 'normal;' it is only a central tendency. The normal is to be different.

And on the above issue, I'm content with my afterlife as an atheist. My bones will be in a documented collection, and I'll continue to teach and research long after my death. I don't expect to be aware of it then, though.

I wouldn't disagree with your last paragraph.

I'm sure you agree that an individual can't have a central tendency.

Outliers indicate either, an insufficient sample size, or mixed populations. A normal distribution is rarely a bell curve, it needn't be symmetric, it can have thin or fat tails, it can have bumps and humps, but by definition, the distribution of a complete population will be normal.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Ah, the Great Joan Collins... I remember watching a movie called Decadence, long ago, where she was playing a rich woman who had servants... I remember one scene, where she uses her servant as a horse. That woman touched so many of our kinks here

Yes, here she is:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109582/mediaviewer/rm1165662209/?ref_=tt_md_3

At the age of 89, God bless her, she's still making movies.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

I wouldn't disagree with your last paragraph.

I'm sure you agree that an individual can't have a central tendency.

Outliers indicate either, an insufficient sample size, or mixed populations. A normal distribution is rarely a bell curve, it needn't be symmetric, it can have thin or fat tails, it can have bumps and humps, but by definition, the distribution of a complete population will be normal.

The distribution of a complete population isn't a statistic; it's a census, and is usually wide enough to include outliers as part of the "normal" distribution. The normal is variation, and even within individuals, variation is normal. Homozygosity is the abnormal, if we have to consider something abnormal. After all, isn't doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different outcome a practical definition of insanity? By the way, since most sane individuals don't behave that way, it would seem that they could easily display central tendency. That itself is the key for a coach's positioning of his field in response to different batters.

 

[XerXesXu]

The distribution of a complete population isn't a statistic; it's a census, and is usually wide enough to include outliers as part of the "normal" distribution. The normal is variation, and even within individuals, variation is normal. Homozygosity is the abnormal, if we have to consider something abnormal. After all, isn't doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different outcome a practical definition of insanity? By the way, since most sane individuals don't behave that way, it would seem that they could easily display central tendency. That itself is the key for a coach's positioning of his field in response to different batters.

BETWEEN individuals - 'central tendency' is an abstract concept to describe a population, not a physical characteristic an individual can possess. Nor does an individual exhibit genetic diversity; absent Big-Pharma, it remains stable. The variation in genetic endowment of an individual is a property of his forbearers, the population who crowdfunded him. Homo and heterozygosity are both stable properties of an individual's genetic makeup. They're descriptions of an invariate physical characteristic.

Perhaps you should take this to the common room at your university.

 

[TxRad]

Normal as compared to who, what, and when. Normal and abnormal are only in the mind of the beholder.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

BETWEEN individuals - 'central tendency' is an abstract concept to describe a population, not a physical characteristic an individual can possess. Nor does an individual exhibit genetic diversity; absent Big-Pharma, it remains stable. The variation in genetic endowment of an individual is a property of his forbearers, the population who crowdfunded him. Homo and heterozygosity are both stable properties of an individual's genetic makeup. They're descriptions of an invariate physical characteristic.

Perhaps you should take this to the common room at your university.

Perhaps you should consider that 'central tendency' can apply to any body of events, including where a batter most commonly hits a baseball. You should also brush up on the complexity of gene/environment interaction and recognize that the expression of genes, even in a homozygote, is not always the same, across and within individuals. They are not invariate physical characteristics, and, if you don't look at genes homocentrically, you'll find things even more complex. And let's not forget that in cellular reproduction, even somatic cells, mutations occur, changing the contribution of the ancestor cells.

 

[XerXesXu]

Normal as compared to who, what, and when. Normal and abnormal are only in the mind of the beholder.

As compared to every other human being alive at any moment you are alive. By definition everyone is normal. Some individuals could look at others and say, 'I'm more average than any of them', and that may, in some quantifiable respects, be true. But people rarely make comparisons in those terms. Usually, they'll say things like 'I'm moral, they're immoral.' 'Like most respectable people, I'm straight, they're not respectable, not normal, they're gay.' These are personal, attitudes, prejudices, value judgments, personal constructs, personal inventions, not objective measures of empirical normality.

When you say abnormality's in the mind of the beholder, that's exactly right, it's an expression of one individual's beliefs and, for validation, he may well seek comfort in the company and comfort of an echo chamber of those who share his beliefs.

 

[XerXesXu]

Perhaps you should consider that 'central tendency' can apply to any body of events, including where a batter most commonly hits a baseball. You should also brush up on the complexity of gene/environment interaction and recognize that the expression of genes, even in a homozygote, is not always the same, across and within individuals. They are not invariate physical characteristics, and, if you don't look at genes homocentrically, you'll find things even more complex. And let's not forget that in cellular reproduction, even somatic cells, mutations occur, changing the contribution of the ancestor cells.

' BODY of events' This is getting seriously circular.

There are those in your university who'll help you, that's their job, don't lean on me.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I thought I was normal growing up. Later I found out everyone else was weird. Later still, that they thought things I liked were weird.

I could never tell the difference between boys and girls (still can't, half the time), so assumed kiss chase in the playground was always boys v girls because they had different uniforms, for reasons that tbh still seem bonkers, with the boys in shorts even in winter. As a teenager I cottoned on pretty quick that if asked who you fancied, it had to be a male name. Wanting to be in a bubble bath with *both* Joan Collins and Dex Dexter or whoever was definitely unspeakable.

Enjoying any particular pleasant textures or similar was also something to keep to yourself. Then as a student I found that most people wanted sex, but didn't care to actually do it well, figure out how to make it better, or anything.

But I found some groups of friends via niche interests, we had parties, and suddenly things got a lot more interesting. Embracing kinks was the new norm. Great stuff.

Until 20 years later when all our children got diagnosed with autism and we all got side-eye for clearly being on the spectrum and letting them inherit it. I don't think it's that they have more symptoms than my generation, just that society has changed to make it more difficult for them. Society can damn well start adapting.

 

[NoJo]

For anyone who doesn't know me, "abnormal" in the thread title was merely my usual, provocative clickbait.

For anybody that does know me, "abnormal" in the thread title is a self-description which is, like "queer", a badge I wear proudly.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

' BODY of events' This is getting seriously circular.

There are those in your university who'll help you, that's their job, don't lean on me.

No need to lean on you. You seriously need an education.