Life seems to drastically change for me quicker than woman changes her mind on what she wants to watch on TV. That’s not always such a bad thing. Today, I realized how different I am than most people. Most of learned about “The Bell Curve” in high school math and science. It’s discussed in many subjects in college, from Statistics to Psychology. I’ve never thought of myself as normal. Today, I realized how far out on the Bell Curve I am. If there is a subject quantified by this curve, I’m probably on the far end of it.

For example, when people are in Fight/Flight/Freeze (F3 because I can’t say those three words together without fucking it up), they cannot process emotions. When people are dealing with trauma, they have to process their emotional state before they can tackle what is causing the PTSD, what is triggering them. Terms like “triggered” and “PTSD” are over used in today’s culture. Triggered doesn’t mean something upsets you; it means that you relive the traumatic experience again. You can see, smell, taste, experience all of the sensations as if it was happening to you again. The trigger throws you into F3 where you cannot process emotions. It can literally be crippling. Very few people can use logic and reasoning while in F3, meaning they can use logic to reason their way out of the situation and process their emotions later. That’s me.

I tell my emotions to “shut the fuck up, and sit back down.” I literally shut off my emotions while in F3. I’m hyper-aware, hyper-aroused. I can see more than normal, but it comes at a price. I use up so much of my resources, I crash later. My emotions come pouring out like a clogged toilet overflowing. While that in itself isn’t a bad thing, I’ve been in constant F3 for over 18 years. I go through life, hyper-aware and numb. I look down and wonder where the fuck all this water is coming from, forgetting the toilet even existed.

I was told that not many people go through as many stressful situations at once. There’s a top-ten list of life’s most stressful situations. It can vary from country to country, but I’m like, “check, check, check, oh, check…” Why just get divorced when you can get divorced, have your house go into foreclosure, sell the house, deal with many medical issues, a child with disabilities, starting a new business, etc, etc, etc? Again, on one end of the Bell Curve.

Saying, “I’ve always known I was different,” seems almost cliche these days, like it’s the cool thing to say. I’ve always known I’m “smarter” than most people. That doesn’t mean I know more or am better in any way. I’m insanely intellectual, almost in a savant/autistic way. I never understood how people didn’t think of this or that. I never understood how people could just sit there and play video games or watch TV all day. I get bored too easily. There are many people like that, but most people seem to be content to just float through life, coasting. I just can’t do that.

It doesn’t seem to matter what in life I’m quantifying. I seem to be at one end of the spectrum or another. I’ve never thought it made me better or worse than other people. I’ve tried to fit myself into the normal way of thinking, but I just can’t. I do not understand it. I’m not a sociopath who can fake emotions and feelings. I have too much empathy for that, but I did question it because I thought differently than most people.

The Bell Curve exists for a reason. It shows, statistically, how most people/things fall into a category, per se. There is the standard deviation from the median/average. I typically fall outside that standard deviation. It doesn’t matter if it is intelligence, thought process, ability to handle stress, etc, I seem to always be outside the standard deviation, hitting the outer edges of the Bell Curve. Hell, sometimes, I’m not even listed on the Bell Curve (the Masters and Johnson study). I just have to learn that it is okay to be outside that curve.