Back to "Normal"

The American Psychiatric Association publishes a comprehensive classification of officially recognized psychiatric disorders called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, currently in its fourth edition. This is universally recognized as the DSM-IV among mental health professionals. I am not sure where I found the following off-take, but it seemed apropos at the time.


May 9, 02


The mare is back with her foal in the barn. The water is being pumped out of the basement slightly faster than it is flowing in. The chicks hatched this winter were combined with the rest of the flock. The pastures are greening up just in time because we are running out of hay.

Life is returning to "normal".

This is from DSM-XV, not yet released but working on it...:

Diagnostic criteria for NPD: Normal Person Disorder

1. A chronic feeling of normalness.
2. A tendency to bore others easily.
3. A nagging sense of constantly meeting one's goal.
4. Lack of difficulty getting organized.
5. Inability to be humorus.
6. Knowing how to count without forgetting what number you are up to.
7. An inability to be creative and intuitive, no seat of pants to fly by.
8. Highly stimulated by lectures, speeches, dead cockroaches and other normals.
9. An unbroken remote control.
10. A To-Do list which gets done.
11. A choronic interest in each or any of the following for more than a week: Job, Relationship, Schedule, Patience, Passing Grades, Sex, Normals
12. A methodical nature.
13. Affectionaltely known as "Bump on a log" or "Nytol Substitute"
14. Always remembers to close the barn door.

I'm not yet suffering from NPD.