Do you know ANYONE who isn't "broken?"

My wife, dear person that she is, harps constantly on why this or that person behaves the way they do, and holds up impossible standards of "normality" that not one person I know can live up to.

What I tell her is this: EVERYONE is "broken" (write: neurotic, psychotic, depressed, manic, insert your mindfuck here). NOBODY works right because ALL parents, even the best, make mistakes, and the "Butterfly Syndrome" always magnifies the error, even unto the current generation, never rectifying it.

I tell her it is a mistake to hold faulted people (write: EVERYONE) up impossible standards. She'll agree for a couple of days, then it's back to business.

I don't hold this against her; it's almost endearing, but it begs the question: Who isn't BROKEN?

I don't know a single person, no one I've ever met isn't "broken" in some fashion.

We all have issues.

Or some of the enlightened ones...that's about it. Pretty much every other person has issues of some sort.

and then there's broken.

We all have issues... now lets do something about them

are stronger in the broken places."

produces "broken" people.

and I think it has something to do with lack of focus on herself. She had a passle (passle?) of kids, and her life seems to be devoted to making sure they have the smallest amount of pain in life as possible. She is not a martyr, by any means, but doesn't seem to focus on her own problems - maybe because she doesn't have the time! I have known her for many years now, and have never heard her complain about one damn thing. BTW, she also volunteers at a local food bank.

There was a friend in jr. and high school whose homelife I envied. Loving and caring parents, who provided and nutured, I spent as much time as possible there.
We, moved away from there, we always moved, so I don't know how his life has went, but, I'm sure that things have caught up with him.
Every person I know is broken, in one form or another.

I know a couple of people who are remarkably healthy -- their families are very functional, their reactions to life's events are proportional and reasonable, and they're just, overall, normal.

I'm not one of them. I am about as damaged as it's possible to be by age 25 and not commit suicide. But I do know that "normal" is out there. :shrug:

...and none of my relatives are normal.

Seriously, this is not to say that you don't know anyone "healthy." I merely assert that the prefect 4.0 person does not exist, and therefore, no one can be logically held up to what Lenny Bruce called, "The 'Perverse What Should Be.'"

3 out of approximately 1,000 acquaintances) who qualify as "normal" by most things I've read.

But I know what you mean. :-)

There is no "normal" barometer, thermometer or kronometer. There is a basic understanding of "broken" I think. By broken, I take it to mean that some belief or ideal was pushed through the meat grinder and ended up being something either totally different or just unrecognizable to the original. There can be broken beliefs, even broken individual's beliefs based on their inability to confront and move beyond obstacles, but I don't believe in "broken" people.

To believe in "broken" people entails that one believes less in the strength of the human spirit than on the ability of others to control it.

I don't believe that.

btw - I read your response in another thread, and think that was incredibly important for getting people's thoughts focused on the problem listed. Thanks for your insight and for being forthcoming. That is courage, and that is definitely not broken.

as merely the theological version of the truth that nobody's perfect.

that were damaging depending on their ability to confront what actually happened and how it altered reality for them as well as their future responses to life.

We all have imperfections.