A Half-Bubble Off Level

            Once upon a time, there were no computers in the schools.  In the rural Virginia county where I worked as a school psychologist the “Tech Squad” consisted of a middle-aged man who was good at repairing TVs and VCRs.  He would bring them to the School Board Annex, which housed my office, and spread them out on the seldom-used conference table in the main room.  During her slow times, the secretary for the building would chat with him as he worked. 

            My office was just on the other side of paper-thin walls, which meant that I could hear everything that they said.  Unlike me, they were both natives of the county.  Much of their talk was, quite frankly, gossip.  One day they were gossiping about a mutual acquaintance.  After some chuckling over some of this person’s recent behaviors, the “Tech” man commented, “You know, he always was a half-bubble off level.”

            Now it was my time to chuckle.  I had never heard that phrase.  My grandfather was a builder.  I knew that a level was a tool people use to see if something like a wall, or a picture on the wall, etc., is “level.”  I had never thought to use that phrase to describe people. 

            The phrase has stuck with me as I contemplate just what kind of behaviors a person would exhibit in order to find himself labeled by his peers, friends, and neighbors as “a half-bubble off level.”  How different would that look from being “level” or “a whole bubble off level?”  Do most people move between these labels over the course of a lifetime?  Do “level,” “normal,” ”and “mentally healthy” mean the same thing?  Or, are there times in our lives when it is mentally healthier to be “off-level?”  We have psychological terms to describe people:  Normal, Neurotic, Psychotic.  But, just what do these terms mean, and what it means to be a “normal” person? 

         Join me over the next few weeks as we explore the fascinating world of mental health vs. mental illness.