TOP TEN WARNING SIGNS OF WHAT IS CALLED "NORMAL" by Janet Foner Support Coalition co-coordinator & psychiatric survivor 10. COOL: You're cool, you hold everything in and always put "a good face on it" -- you never cry or laugh much, or show emotion in any way, certainly not in public. Your psychiatric label is "tearlessnicity." 9. SERIOUS: You always do the proper thing -- never anything unusual, playful, spontaneous, "different," wild, or creative, if you can help it. You believe playing and being silly is beneath your dignity and only for children. You have a psychiatric label of "stiff upper lippity." 8. NICE: You always act nice even if you can't stand the person to whom you're talking. You never say what you're really thinking. Your diagnosis: "inappropriate smiling." 7. ALWAYS RIGHT: You always do everything right -- wear the "right clothes," say the "right thing," associate only with the "right people"-- you know there is only one right way, and it's your way. You are diagnosed as "conformity prone." 6. BORING: Your conversations, life and living space are dull and boring, and your lawn is always manicured no matter what. In the more advanced stages you have much inner "lifelessness" and "flat affect" -- in other words, you are one of the "walking dead." Your psychiatric label is "hyperinactivity." 5. OBEDIENT: You always try not to offend anyone, especially those in authority -- your security seems to depend on that. So therefore you are willing to put expediency ahead of principles. Your psychiatric label is "adjustment prone/adjustment reaction." 4. GULLIBLE: You believe that the doctor always knows best, that the media is telling the truth (major newspapers always print the facts, right?), and that the medical model of "mental illness" has been proven scientifically. Your diagnosis is "normal naivete disorder." 3. AVOID FEELINGS: You are out of touch with yourself, with the natural world, and with what is going on with other people. It has become too hard to face how others are being oppressed, so you choose a more comfortable path. TV starts to look very, very good. You are labelled with "severe blinderitis." 2. DON'T TRUST YOURSELF: You learned in school that it's important to always pay attention to those in charge and not to trust your own thinking. You learned to "play the game," and you are still doing that. You believe your own lies. You have an advanced case of "schoolmania," which, if not stopped in its early stages can lead to severe overwork and, in advanced stages, "corporate asskissingitis." 1. INDOORISM: You lost touch with the wildness in nature. You do not rebel against ecological destruction. Label: "Tame." DON'T PANIC! If you have two or more of these signs, within any lunar cycle, you probably only have "residual normality." No case of 100% normality has ever been discovered. So it's not too late! Join SCI, read Dendron News, support one another, get out into nature, and especially take action to stop psychiatric oppression before serious persistent "normality" sets in. Heal Normality Naturally! Join the Heal Normality campaign! SUBSCRIBE to the free HEALNORM mailing list. Here's how: Send e-mail to "majordomo@efn.org" with just the words "subscribe HEALNORM" in the message body. Snail-mail: Support Coalition / POB 11284 / Eugene, OR 97440-3484 U.S.A. Membership is at least $15. Sample $2. Add extra if outside U.S.A. NORMALS ARE DESTROYING EARTH!