WNL

"Within Normal Limits" was a distinction from medic class a long time ago.  There's no healthy or sick, no right or wrong, no crazy or sane, just stuff that is or isn't within normal limits.  WNL. Joints are a little tight or a little loose, that's WNL.  You can function in society, your psychology is WNL.

More or less.  I've written about this before and been thinking about it much.  Normal limits shift.  They shift with time and society and subculture and circumstances.  My normal limits (and expectation) for appropriate alertness, speech and ability to engage were very different in the jail than at home.  WNL behavior is context dependent.

Obviously.  And one of the things I've written about before, in different words is that most attempts to 'fix' bad guys are not attempts to make them better, but attempts to make them more like the people that judge them.  In other words, to drag them within the boundaries of our normal limits.

Last Tuesday, I got the chance to talk to a small group of people at Walter Reed Medical Center in DC.  Some were clinicians, some patients.  It was good, especially for me.  There are people who have been through certain things and that lets us cut out the bullshit and talk about things instead of around things. Sometimes on the blog I feel like I am ranging fire, trying to find the concept that most people can get as an analogy to some of the things I try to say.  But at best, it can only be an analogy.

One of the symptoms of PTSD is "hypervigilance" the adrenaline-fueled jumpiness that has you living on orange alert.  Is it bad?  Looked at in the context of where it developed it is an important survival trait.  In an environment where people are hunting you, where vest bombers and assassins and snipers will do everything possible to hide their intention, hypervigilance is far more valuable than the complacent zombies you see all over Costco.  Not only are the zombies unaware and helpless, they also aren't really living.  They don't see the snipers but they don't see the sky, either.  They live small and pathetic bubble lives.

People in certain professions have done things and adapted to doing things that others cannot imagine.  In any other endeavor, we would recognize this for what it is-- superiority.  All other things being equal (not that that ever happens) the person who holds the gold record in the 100m dash is superior to the one who doesn't.  The person who speaks three languages is superior to the one who speaks only one.  All other things being equal, being better at math is simply better.

Take a minute and let your little insecurities come out in whimpery growls.  Explain all the reasons why everyone is equal OR why someone who is better than you at everything doesn't mean, on some imaginary spiritual level that you are inferior.  Whatever you need to say so you can sleep at night.

When it comes to violence, though, there is an extra level of weirdness. Our civilization has progressed to the point that some can believe that violence is an aberration.  They can deny that they remain safe only because other people (who can do something they cannot do for themselves) stand ready to oppose those who would use violence.  And so, most are driven to believe that those who can do violence MUST be broken in some way.

The broken/fixed paradigm may get in the way.  Appropriate levels of response vary by situation (and that was one of the Major's goals with this talk was a conscious recalibration of threat assessment.)  I have a hard time saying there is something wrong with mindset X if it gives you an edge surviving situation Y.  The skill of reading the situation and opting between mindsets might be the way to go.

Enough.  I'm rambling.  Just be aware that if you have a superpower, those without will be driven to describe it as a problem.  The question may not be whether something is wrong but where that something fits.