Pursuit of a 'normal life': mood, anxiety, and their disordering

Throughout the process of being treated for mood and anxiety disorders, people dream of the "normal life" that awaits them. However, post-therapy, the distinctiveness of clinical normality (i.e., reduced symptomatology) and social normativity become more apparent. In this article we suggest that for people who have long felt socially excluded because of their psychiatric symptoms, being "normally shy" or "normally awkward" is not enough. Instead they aspire to an ideal life. This confusion between means and ends, between a nonsymptomatic self, a normative self, and an ideal self, leads these individuals to long-term self-doubt and confusion about how to reach their elusive goals. Yet, their never-ending pursuit of normative ideals applies to "normal" and "abnormal" people alike. An analysis of narratives of exclusion allows us to reflect the life-long search for social inclusion via a normal life.