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Opening Arguments

Anger mismanagement

I'll be darned. I've known some mentally ill people in my time, but I never realized there were so many of them:

You know them. I know them. And, increasingly, psychiatrists know them. People who feel they have been wronged by someone and are so bitter they can barely function other than to ruminate about their circumstances.

This behavior is so common -- and so deeply destructive -- that some psychiatrists are urging it be identified as a mental illness under the name post-traumatic embitterment disorder. The behavior was discussed before an enthusiastic audience last week at a meeting of the American Psychiatric Assn. in San Francisco.

Post-traumatic embitterment disorder, eh? The psychiatrist who came up with that label says it describes people who feel the world has treated them unfairly: "It's one step more complex than anger. They're angry plus helpless." Geez. You're around long enough, you're gonna feel angry and helpless once in a while, because, guess what, you got screwed and you can't do anything about it.

I feel a little PTED coming on right now, as a matter of fact. Gimme a pill, somebody.

Comments

tim zank
Wed, 05/27/2009 - 11:19am

"Post-traumatic embitterment disorder" otherwise known as "Holy crap I'm a real wuss, huh?"

Bob G.
Wed, 05/27/2009 - 12:17pm

Oh, those WACKY San Franciscans...!

Leave it to THEM to dream this crap up.

PTED...

(whew)...this SURE isn't the world WE grew up in any longer...is it?

(pssst...to those who "feel" they're suffering from PTED...here's a hint...take the BLUE pill and go back to sleep)

We like the RED ones.

;)

alex
Thu, 05/28/2009 - 6:23am

That phony shrink. All he did was take Obama Derangement Syndrome and give it a new name.

Leo Morris
Thu, 05/28/2009 - 9:21am

Which is, of course, so much more irrational and indefensible than Bush Derangement Syndrome, right?

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