[forgottenpass]

>Aren't most mental disorders just behaviors that differ from the norm and make it difficult for those people to function in everyday society?

Yes. Exactly this.

>My point being that I don't understand where you draw the line.

When the person with the norm-non-following behavior is unable integrate with wider society.

I was lucky enough to study psychology under someone with a streak of playful contempt for the unwanted self-seriousness that the field has. His definition of "mental disorder" as deviation from norms made sense on the first day, the definition at the top of the "mental disorder" wikipedia page is just a rabbit hole of using words that need to be defined clearly and specifically for the definition to mean anything.

Defining mental disorder as an inability to integrate can feel unsatisfying because it's essentializes the current norms of one's societal context. We know them to be entirely flexible over a short timescale (for definitions of "short" that include a decade) and it drives a line between those who can't adapt but by chance happen to ingrate and those who don't. But if you think about it for a while, you'll realize: what else could it be?

[xkcd-sucks]

>I was lucky enough to study psychology under someone with a streak of playful contempt for the unwanted self-seriousness that the field has.

I studied psych with someone that had this posted on his office door, headlined "Advances in Psychosurgery" :)

https://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/25/us/brain-wound-eliminates...