Mindless Ramblings...

How does anyone know what normal is?
For someone who has lived in poverty all his life, receiving less than the "basic" necessities is a good life.
To the rest of the world, he has lived in a life of depravity, deserving of pity.

Perhaps it is by a standard set by scientists and politicians through careful work and research.
If you fall below it, you are sub-normal and need external help.
If you at least meet it, you are normal.

In essence, whether you are normal is entirely dependant upon comparisons.

What then if there are no comparisons to be made?
What if the distinctions are not immediately discernable?
For example, how does a person know if he suffers from a low self-esteem?

Sure, you could provide symptoms and let people check off the list on their own examination.
And there will always be people who exaggerate their own problems so as to chalk up a list of problems.
It is human nature: the more problems you live with, the greater the hero you seem to become.

Straying from more spiritual issues, even medicine has committed this error many times over.
Judging from the symptoms that the patient exhibits, there have been instances -- albeit few, but nevertheless significant in number -- whereby science has wrongly diagnosed the condition that the patient has.

More relevant to the issue at hand, science with all its checks and balances, still commit such errors.
What more if we were to scrutinise our own life and symptoms for conditions such as depression or autism or hyperactivity, for example?
How do we ever know?