Nobody’s Normal: Lessons for World Mental Health Day

Today is World Mental Health Day.

This day is set aside not just to raise awareness of mental illness, but to remind us of something deeper: that mental health is part of the human story, and stigma is what turns suffering into isolation.

Anthropologist Roy Richard Grinker captures this beautifully in his book Nobody’s Normal. Drawing on history, culture, and personal experience, he argues that mental illness isn’t a defect in the human condition — it’s part of it. Everyone struggles at some point. Everyone faces periods of grief, anxiety, depression, or trauma. The idea of “normal” is a cultural construct, not a biological reality.

Here are three lessons from Grinker’s work worth holding onto:

1. Nobody fits “normal.” The very concept of “normal” mental health is a myth. Just as every body has its quirks and vulnerabilities, every mind does too. Struggle is not rare — it’s universal. By admitting that, we stop treating people as outsiders and start recognizing a shared humanity.

2. Stigma often does more damage than the condition itself. A diagnosis can help someone find treatment, community, or language for what they’re experiencing. But stigma — the shame, the silence, the judgment — prevents healing. Too often, people hide their pain because they’re afraid of what others will think. In many cases, stigma is the heavier burden to carry than the illness itself.

3. Community heals. Grinker’s research shows that in cultures where mental illness carries less stigma, outcomes improve dramatically. People recover better when they feel safe to share their struggles without fear of being labeled or cast out. Connection, compassion, and conversation are as important to healing as any medicine.

This World Mental Health Day, the message is simple: nobody’s normal, and nobody’s broken. To be human is to struggle. To be human is also to reach for one another in that struggle. I'll tell you this, I've lost many days to poor mental health. I lost my father to it, and his brother too. I had to learn, via the hardest trials of my life, that I needed help. I had to break the stigma, "men don't feel, or share." I started doing both along with prescription therapy and it saved me.

If you’re carrying pain today, you’re not alone. If you’re listening to someone else’s, you’re part of their healing. If you’re holding onto stigma, challenge it.

World Mental Health Day is about remembering that “normal” doesn’t exist — but compassion always can.