Name: Myth of Normal
ISBN: 9780735278363

Myth of Normal

riveting and beautifully written tale has profound implications for all of our lives, including the practice of medicine and mental health.” —Bessel van der Kolk, MD, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Body Keeps the Score “Wise, sophisticated, rigorous and creative: an intellectual and compassionate investigation of who we are and who we may become. Essential reading for anyone with a past and a future.” —Tara Westover, New York Times bestselling author of Educated “The Myth of Normal is a book literally everyone will be enriched by—a wise, profound and healing work that is the culmination of Dr. Maté's many years of deep and painfully accumulated wisdom.” —Johann Hari, New York Times bestselling author of Stolen Focus “Gabor and Daniel Maté have delivered a book in which readers can seek refuge and solace during moments of profound personal and social crisis. The Myth of Normal is an essential compass during disorienting times.” —Esther Perel, psychotherapist, author, and host of Where Should We Begin From our most trusted and compassionate authority on stress, trauma, and mental well-being—a groundbreaking investigation into the causes of illness, a bracing critique of how our society breeds disease, and a pathway to health and healing. Gabor Maté’s internationally bestselling books have changed the way we look at addiction and have been integral in shifting the conversations around ADHD, stress, disease, embodied trauma, and parenting.

What Hacker News says

barbazooMar 2025

I'm reading Gabor Mate's "Myth of Normal" and it helped me understand a lot more the nature of some of our misery and how much of it can be traced back to consumerism.

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DemcoxFeb 2024

Reading the "Myth of Normal" by Gabor Maté opened my eyes for this as a possible explanation.

I highly recommend this for a read on how stress alters the body.

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nonrandomstringJan 2024

"The Myth of Normal" by Mate Gabor is a great place for people to start this work.

Later it dawns on you that sure, like everybody else you have weaknesses and traumas that you've learned to cope with, but that doesn't excuse some people deliberately designing and pushing a product to specifically exploit that. That should give you dose of healthy positive anger of the kind that is transformative when acted upon.

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nonrandomstringOct 2023

I'd highly recommend "The Myth of Normal" by Gabor Mat\'e as the long version of this position.

But beware, once you accept its premise one must concede by the same token, those who prey upon the vulnerable in society, whether they are heroin farmers and dealers, or addictive app developers, are cut from the same moral cloth. The "legality" or "illegality" of the end product is immaterial, only the social effects.

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fsocietyApr 2023

Really though, the phones? To blame it all on phones and social media, is the classic “duh isn’t it obvious just look at what they are doing” moment.

This perpetuates the narrative of the “coddled mind” AKA dysfunctional generation who are glued to their phones and unable to cope with the “real world” requiring “safe spaces”. How we are all victims to radicalization from social media even though research has not been able to link the two.

It also completely ignores the fact that women are much more likely to be abused, men under-report depression/anxiety, our diets consist of shitty process foods, we don’t exercise as much, the economy has favored the rich again and again, the several research studies which suggest reverse causation, parental abuse etc.

Some readings.

https://www.yesmagazine.org/health-happiness/2023/03/02/soci...

> The CDC’s 2022 report found 3 to 4 times more teens reporting parental abuses (55%) than its 2023 report found for school (15%) or cyber (16%) bullying, even though the agency’s definition of parental abuse is narrower than for peer bullying. LGBTQ+ youth again suffer the most. They are 4 times more likely to be violently abused by household adults and 3 to 5 times more likely to have attempted suicide than non-LGBTQ+ youth.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/we-know-...

> Given the transformative effects of social media, Haidt insisted, it was important to act now, even in the absence of dispositive evidence. “Academic debates play out over decades and are often never resolved, whereas the social-media environment changes year by year,” he said. “We don’t have the luxury of waiting around five or ten years for literature reviews.”

Gabor Mate has more weight in my mind on explaining the rise of mental illness in western society. His book “Myth of Normal” is great and does not contain new information so much as it ties things we know together.

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magicink81Mar 2023

I recommend the online courses (one of which is free) [1], and videos [2] on YouTube made by Anna Runkle, the "Crappy Childhood Fairy".

[1] https://courses.crappychildhoodfairy.com/daily-practice [2] https://crappychildhoodfairy.com/videos/

Others in the thread have recommended "The Body Keeps the Score", which I also recommend. It is available on Audible as an audiobook as well.

Other books I recommend:

"Self-Parenting: The Complete Guide to Your Inner Conversations" by John K Pollard and Linda Nusbaum.

"How to be an Adult in Relationships" by David Richo

"The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture" by Gabor Mate

"When the Body Says No" by Gabor Mate

I practice Mindful Qi Gong (healing movement + meditation) once a week as a part of a 2-hour class, as well as independently on an irregular schedule. It has helped significantly to deal with stress.

I think that for people struggling with issues like CPTSD, ignorance is the first, and largest barrier to healing / recovery / improving. We grow up and enter the adult world and often in many ways "escape" our stressful / traumatic childhoods only to start the process of creating our own trauma and stress as young adults. As we enter adulthood, we may be consciously or subconsciously masking our feelings / hide our pain / run from dealing with our emotions and issues because we want desperately to leave all that behind us. This "running away" may actually compound our problems, leading to destructive behaviors such as substance abuse. Gabor Mate, among others, presents a compelling case that the majority of the people we see on the street struggling with addictions and mental health issues may not have ended up there if they had received proper care and healing, even as adults. If only they had, perhaps, in their more lucid, clearer-thinking, younger days come to understand that they had the need and possibility for healing. The pure ignorance we have about this topic in our society is staggering, considering the widespread impact childhood trauma has on our lives.

I certainly wish someone had sat me down in my 20s and told me directly: "You had a crappy childhood, that sucks. And the effects of the trauma on your physiology and psychology may limit you for the rest of your life. However, there is good news: Now you're an adult and healing is possible."

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