That’s conflating what people present to the world with their mind. It’s a very shallow understanding of what’s going on.

Regularly BASE jumping is seriously dangerous to the point where almost nothing else people do that’s “living on the edge” really compares. Think active war zone levels of danger, but they don’t need to dress up in spikes to show off how edgy they are. It’s possible to come off as a calm high school librarian while still being an extreme adrenaline junkie.

Next time you walk past a middle aged banker type in a sports coat consider they could be a furry, you just don’t know. Assuming someone seeming normal is actually normal is being blind to the possibilities.

>> That’s conflating what people present to the world with their mind. It’s a very shallow understanding of what’s going on

I was trying to contrast the external and internal presentations of self, not conflate them. My point is that a "normal" external presentation doesn't make someone a "normal" person. Someone can act, consume, and behave certain ways that help them feel normal, but in the end it's a coping or survival mechanism of sorts. If I fit in with the "in" crowd it affords social and economic status. That's the version of "normal" my comment was responding to.

The only way to define normal is the external representation, you never see the internal one.

Therefore someone that seems normal to all appearances is normal. If in the privacy of their own mind they pray to the invisible fairy living in their left nostril, well how do you know that’s not what 90% of people do?

Trying to be normal is normal. Being normal may have never been normal, but trying to be was and is.

That's what were losing, people don't even try to be normal anymore, because having a mental illness has been normalised.

It's not the right side of history, it's not progressive, it's not inclusive. There will be a price to pay and we'll only find out how much it is once we get the bill.

That is trivially falsified, the prevalence of mental illness is not really related to the acceptance in society (outside of society declaring things to be a mental illness, e.g. homosexuality). For example in Germany the incidence of people missing work days for mental health reasons is higher in regions with less academic jobs (a milieu which tends to be more open to these topics) and in the formerly socialist parts (where there was a higher tabooization of mental health topics). Similar patterns exist for suicide.

I think I know what you get at, but it is important to differentiate between e.g. someone with social anxiety overcoming their anxiety to take part in society (the good way of "trying to be normal") and someone repressing what should actually be worked on (the bad way, hurting both the person, and, long term, society).

The important point with all things regarding the human mind (education, psychology etc.) is that one strictly can't infer what actually happens from outside observation alone. Let's say there exist two persons, A and B, and both play 6 hours of videogames a day. But person A is a perfectly healthy introvert, while with person B this actually is addictive behaviour concealing mental health problems the person hasn't found the strength to confront yet. It depends on how they feel while playing, and how they feel when not playing.