Bitterness To Be Classified As a Mental Illness

Some psychiatrists are trying to get excessive bitterness identified as a mental illness named post-traumatic embitterment disorder. Of course this has some people who live perfect little lives, and always get what they want, questioning the new classification. The so called "disorder" is modeled after post-traumatic stress disorder because it too is a response to a trauma that endures. "They feel the world has treated them unfairly. It's one step more complex than anger. They're angry plus helpless," says Dr. Michael Linden, the psychiatrist who put a name to how the world works.

Comments

Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be bitter too if I had four fingers and no torso.

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

No, red potato men have smiles on their foreheads, you bigot.

Re:Makes sense

[internerdj]

How can you tell he is bitter? He is missing the proper digit to express it to the world?

Re:Makes sense

[Jurily]

So, what's next on the list of mental illnesses? Hope? Happiness? Not being a properly brainwashed consumer?

We already have boredom on there.

Re:Makes sense

[Scragglykat]

How can you tell he is a he? He is missing the proper digit to express it to the world?

Re:Makes sense

[Mystra_x64]

Having a brain is a sure sign of possible mental illness in the future.

Re:Makes sense

[rubycodez]

I thought it was all torso, pot belly with legs and an attitude. we have lots of middle aged farts at work like that.

Re:Makes sense

[commodoresloat]

yes but they still do taste quite bitter.

Re:Makes sense

[unlametheweak]

I can't help but feel that this is just a marketing ploy for the profession that will encourage more FDA approved "happy pills" and psychiatrists visits. Putting medical labels on different emotional states is logically dubious. I'd prefer to live with my depressive realism in peace and without the psychological burden and stigma of being labeled "mentally ill".

I don't want people to think that I am against psychiatry however (I'll leave any antagonisms for the Scientologists to dish out). There is certainly a continuum of emotional and mental states, most of which are totally illogical (i.e. people often "fall in love" with incompatible mates, which is illogical and perhaps should be labeled a mental illness?). Everybody hallucinates, it's just that most people do it when they are asleep and forget about it unless their REM sleep is interrupted. The "mentally ill" merely fall outside of the normal bell curve for such states.

There is quackery in all professions unfortunately, and all are in the business of making money.

Re:Makes sense

[Clandestine_Blaze]

It looks awfully like one of the original Mr. Men characters, though I cannot find the exact one.

Re:Makes sense

[The Archon V2.0]

It looks awfully like one of the original Mr. Men characters, though I cannot find the exact one.

Funny.... I read that series when I was little and I really don't remember #44. Was that the ultra-limited-edition hardcover, mayhap?

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

For ref, it's a drawing in the style of the Mr. Men, children's books where such blobby characters represent various emotional and character stereotypes so small children can dutifully learn of them.

So you have Mr. Grumpy, Mr. Bump (clumsy), etc. There's tens of them, and female ones ("Little Miss ...")

Re:Makes sense

[Duradin]

"There is quackery in all professions unfortunately, and all are in the business of making money."

As a wise man once said, "Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something."

Re:Makes sense

[Clandestine_Blaze]

Oh that's funny. I didn't notice that the first time. I had quite a few of the books as a child, and #44 doesn't ring a bell either.

It was actually added in by hand. The original article where this picture came from is here. If you read the comments, one of them says:

The Mr. Guilty #44 is a cartoon of OJ Simpson and is not an original Mr. Men.

I really should have found a more authentic picture to link to. :\

Re:Makes sense

[Sylver Dragon]

I can't help but feel that this is just a marketing ploy for the profession that will encourage more FDA approved "happy pills" and psychiatrists visits.

I think I've read this book before...Ah yes, A Brave New World.

Re:Makes sense

[gmack]

The worst part is that the happy pills often don't work as well as other means.

A friend of mine who went to the doctor years ago complaining of depression. The doctor gave him Zoloft and he went completely delusional. I went with his mother to drag him back to the doctor and had him explain how he was going to get rich by joining one of the groups that rule the world.

Doctor's answer? "well maybe we should treat this with diet instead of Zoloft" Turns out some forms of depression can be caused by nutrient imbalance and removing him from the pills at least fixed the delusions.

Guy lost all but two of his friends because some quack decided that the quick fix was better than the non pill version.

Re:Makes sense

[orngjce223]

Conversely, I'm associated with a group of parents on a mailing list who, going in with the intent to not have any medication involved, eventually ended up using medication on their kids - with drastically improved results. It's one of those things that works for some people but is vastly overused.

Re:Makes sense

[Austerity Empowers]

The cure for post-traumatic bitterness disorder is ketchup?

Re:Makes sense

[fractoid]

Only until you boil 'em, mash 'em or stick 'em in a stew.

Re:Makes sense

[alexborges]

"...and female ones ("Little Miss ...")"

Miss what? Crack Whore? CorpoBitch?

Man: we adults should adapt to what stereotypes ARE nowdays.

Re:Makes sense

[fractoid]

You may also have noticed that research causes cancer in rats.

Re:Makes sense

[fractoid]

True. Although a certain amount of quackery is required for the world to function - after all, no-one would surrender to a Dread Pirate Westley.

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, finally, it's about time bitterness was recognized as an illness. The lack of classification was beginning to irritate me.
Signed bitterly disappointed.

Re:Makes sense

[jeric23]

Little Miss Can't Be Wrong.

It takes a doctor to spin it.

Re:Makes sense

[Eli Gottlieb]

Well that's just bullshit. Possibly Buddhist bullshit, but it remains bullshit.

Re:Makes sense

[electrons_are_brave]

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSMV) is under review, which is why this has popped up - it's someone lobbying for a disorder to be included. There's criticism, of course. In 1952, it had 66 disorders, by 1994 it had 400, and lordy lordy knows how many this edition will end up with. Which leads to the "we are pathologising everything" debate. I have my own dream. Personally, I research boredom and my chances of getting grant money would be much higher if the chronically & severely bored weren't just outliers from the average (i.e. really bored people), but were, in fact, mentally ill. This would benefit them because (at long last) they would have a real illness which could be treated, recognised legally by insurance companies and get researched. Some neurotransmitters are associated with fatigue, lethergy and boredom, so a drug that blocks, increases or inhibits this would be available tout suit. Of course the truth is that some people get really bored really easily. I suspect this is true of bitterness as well.

Re:Makes sense

[MaskedSlacker]

It certainly works for some people--those whose symptoms are actually caused by what the pill treats.

Depression isn't a disease, it's a symptom. The DSM IV's classification scheme is a joke--it is a list of symptom groupings with names. Depression is caused by a long list of conditions, many of them NOT neurological in origin (for example, hypothyroidism).

Physicians who toss out anti-depressants at the first sign of depression without any consideration for what the cause of that depression is should lose their licenses.

Re:Makes sense

[Narpak]

As a wise man once said, "Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something."

Which is why I never listen to dealer(s); just give me the damn drugs already!

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not bitter, he's grumpy. There is a distinct and copyrighted difference.

Re:Makes sense

[hairyfeet]

My guess is some drug company has figured out a new drug 'treatment" for this 'disorder" and are funding docs like the one above to label it a disease. After all, can't get the insurance to pay up if it isn't a disorder! I guess that just makes me cynical, but not to worry, I'm sure they'll have a pill for that next year. Of course after taking it you'll think that the government is well run and efficient, Vista doesn't suck resources, Macs are cheap, and Lexmarks work on Linux, but hey, everything has side effects, right?

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

That's from princess bride:

Buttercup: You mock my pain.
Westley: Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

Might have been from some wise women first.

Re:Makes sense

[gr8dude]

(i.e. people often "fall in love" with incompatible mates, which is illogical and perhaps should be labeled a mental illness?).

This statement has captured my attention, I'd like to ask you some things about it.

Can you tell me your definition of "fall in love" and "incompatible mates"? I'm genuinely interested, perhaps you can provide some references to materials that try to formalize this? Or elaborate on your point of view?

Re:Makes sense

[repapetilto]

But ketchup has the side effect of making you thirsty, then you have to go and treat that with something to drink. Then you'll be drunk and need to eat more red potato men to stay satisfied, thus requiring more ketchup. Looks like its a scam like everything else.

Re:Makes sense

[repapetilto]

out of curiosity, what do you mean by drastically improved? More behaved? Less weird? I mean as a disclaimer I'm not against using drugs to treat things, but I still don't get giving kids a mind altering thing in a situation where they get in trouble for not taking it. I mean maybe for all you know the kid is selling it and is improved since he/she has some more money and it makes them feel cool. I dunno how ot make this sound less antagonistic but it really is just an honest question. I mean im actually in school to develop these things right now but still can't figure out where to draw the line between use and overuse. No kids seems like a decent one though.

Re:Makes sense

[tygerstripes]

Inconceivable?

Re:Makes sense

[noundi]

Did Guy sue the living shit out of the doctor?

Re:Makes sense

[unlametheweak]

Can you tell me your definition of "fall in love" and "incompatible mates"

I didn't have a formal definition for "fall in love", perhaps I could describe it as a deep emotional attachment (of a romantic nature). "Incompatible" means that they don't have much in common except perhaps for their attraction to each other (which may be more physical in nature than is apparent). In the USA at least, most people marry each other largely through arbitrary circumstances like being physically attracted to each other (all things being equal) without much thought put into their overall psychological compatibility.

For example, John Gottman (a Psychologist with a degree from MIT in Mathematics), wrote a treatise called The Mathematics of Divorce where he can easily predict whether couples will be compatible with each other. He noticed that if video taped couples show signs of Defensiveness, Stonewalling, Criticism, or Contempt for each other in their conversations then their marriage has over a 90% chance of failure. Seems fairly common sense to me, but not to people who end up getting divorced. People don't have the brightest light bulbs sometimes, it makes me embarrassed to be human.

Re:Makes sense

[dplentini]

With a little sour cream and chives, he'll be just right. (Mmmmmmmmmmm, sour cream and red potato men.)

Re:Makes sense

[hesaigo999ca]

No....strippers, lots of them!

Re:Makes sense

[Frigga's Ring]

I would like to donate money to your research on chronic boredom disorder as long as you find Video Games to be an effective cure.

Re:Makes sense

[thesandtiger]

In this case, I would say that one of the differential diagnostic issues would be significant subjective distress before it would be diagnosed. What this means is that you'd have to be bothered enough by it to go and seek help.

An example of another diagnosis with that same kind of differential would be sexual dysfunction. Some people can't get it up and they don't care. No diagnosable condition. Some people can't get it up and it upsets them greatly. Voila, diagnosable condition.

Part of the reason for trying to turn certain things into diagnosable conditions is insurance issues. Insurance refuses to pay for therapy for people who aren't "sick" - even though talking about problems with a professional can help stop problems from becoming severe enough to justify a diagnosis (and cost a LOT more money down the road). People saying it's just about making money are generally not correct - while there are some clinicians who make their living basically having chats with the worried well, most would rather spend their time working with clients who actually can benefit from help. For the most part, the bullshit diagnoses are there to help people who would benefit from preventative treatment, before something becomes severe. We treat people for elevated (but not really high) blood pressure, pre-emptively, why not also help save someone years of misery by helping them develop better coping skills before relatively tame problems they face balloon into huge ones?

Finally, when talking about this, remember, we're not just talking about people who are kind of cynical and sour - we're talking about people who are finding that they are experiencing substantial distress and impaired functioning in many areas of their lives. If you experienced significant pain in your knees that was preventing you from walking without excruciating pain, which was in turn causing you not to exercise, making you miss days at work (or even losing your job), forcing you to stay at home because getting up to go out hurt too much, would anyone say that you going to see a doctor is unreasonable? Same thing here - it's just that because we cannot see the actual cause of the problem people are much more willing to dismiss it.

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet you feel so proud of yourself, keeping your friend from becoming rich and ruling the world. Way to go to keep the man down!

Re:Makes sense

[Magada]

Where are my mod points when I need them?

Re:Makes sense

[ausekilis]

"Devout believers are safe-guarded in a high degree against the risk of certain neurotic illnesses; their acceptance of the universal neurosis spares them the task of building a personal one." - Sigmund Freud

Re:Makes sense

[crmarvin42]

I think that drugs should be used as a last resort with children. The closer they get to adulthood the easier it should be to consider medication before other options. I agree that it's a tricky topic, but unfortunatley there won't be any hard and fast rule that applies in all cases.

I was on medication as a teenager (14-19), although not anymore, and I'm pretty sure it kept me from killing myself (not necessarily on purpose, but maybe). After a few years my personality evened out and I was able to go off of the meds. I have not needed them for over a decade. However, that doesn't mean I didn't need them at the time.

My younger brother on the other hand was successfully treated with behavior and diet modification. He's on meds now, but that's the result of PTSD from serving in Iraq. The underlying personality disorder may have been pre-existing and the pressure of war just made it worse (the psychiatrist believes so), but we don't really know.

Re:Makes sense

[crmarvin42]

I agree totally.

My father-in-law is a good example of someone that would fit this diagnosis. He's perpetually bitter over everything, but cannot/willnot do anything about it. He sees his life as litterally one long list of grevences agains the world for what it's done to him. If they actually had a therapy (drug, or otherwise) that could help, I'd drag him there myself.

I believe that a lot of the bad things that have happened in his life that makes him feel bitter only happened because he let it happen. He cannot seem to help himself and it has definitely resulted in him having a painful debilitated life.

Re:Makes sense

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> "excessive bitterness identified as a mental illness
> named post-traumatic embitterment disorder."

Why don't they work on something more useful, like "ignorant masses empowering slogan-wielding, power-hungry demagogues disorder"?

Re:Makes sense

[electrons_are_brave]

Done. And, we'll sort out some "free" "gaming therapy" for you via medical insurance.

Re:Makes sense

[gr8dude]

Thank you for the feedback, I'll definitely find more details about Gottman's work.

Let me share my findings now. There is a book called "The brain, a decoded enigma"; the author provides a model that attempts to describe the modus operandi of the brain. It is an interesting read, there are a lot of great ideas in it; and besides that, the book is available for free.

One of the things we can understand after reading this book is "what is love?". Here is an excerpt, "Love, to love"

The main model of any brain (human or animal) is the Protection and Survival
Model (PSM). If something (a person, an animal, an object, an idea...) is
included by a person in his/her PSM (as a model, of course), the relation
between that "something" and that person is a love relation. That is, e.g. a
person A includes a person B (as model) in his/her PSM. The person A will
treat person B in the same way as he/she treats his/her legs, hands, eyes etc.

Here we use the convention that A indicates the person who is in love and B is
the person included in the PSM as a model.

The most important love-relation seems to be between a mother and her
children.

As we defined the term "love" the fact that A loves B is totally independent
on the fact that B loves A.

We already described love based on PSM. There is another type of love, which
is not based on PSM. Thus, the person A makes a structure of models which
contains B in about all of them. If B disappears, the models would become
obsolete, which produces a large instability of the structure. The problem
could be solved by another "B" or by a shielding model or by suicide.

Because love is based mainly on image models, about all of the written above
is true for animals too.

Of course, you'll have to read the entire work in order to understand some of the terms. Overall I think that the book is a pretty good model of reality, so far I've been able to confirm its predictions on multiple occasions.

I have written some essays on the subject myself, they describe various aspects of a relationship:

• On social feedback
• Simple relationship mathematics
• Sime relationship physics
• On types of friendship
• Relationships and todo lists (this one also predicts when a relationship is likely to fail)
• Absolute and useless truth
• Select++ (if you speak Romanian - check this one out, it involves some statistics, polls and quotes from interviewed people)

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

... he went completely delusional. I went with his mother to drag him back to the doctor and had him explain how he was going to get rich by joining one of the groups that rule the world.

I see nothing delusional about what he said. You can call me conspiracy theorist if you want but there is a lot of truth in what he said. Especially "one of the groups".

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

He clearly has a middle finger.

Re:Makes sense

[osirisjem]

I'd prefer to live with my depressive realism

You'll like a saying I made up: There are two kinds of people in the world. Depressed people and Stupid people. I think this would be the manifesto for your Depressive Realism compadres.

Cynicism

[Broken scope]

So when is Cynicism getting added to an ever expanding list of mental disorders that one more pill can set right?

Re:Cynicism

[Jurily]

So when is Cynicism getting added to an ever expanding list of mental disorders that one more pill can set right?

Name one on that list that's not there to make these "doctors" more money, and to make patients feel good about themselves because "it's not my fault I'm a moron, I have a disorder".

Re:Cynicism

[Phoenixhawk]

in communist Amerika, pill takes you

Re:Cynicism

[node 3]

So when is Cynicism getting added to an ever expanding list of mental disorders that one more pill can set right?

While they surely have a pill ready, all you need is an irony supplement.

Re:Cynicism

[Ethanol-fueled]

The drug companies are the ones who get the money. The doctors only get free golf trips and paperweights with drug logos on them.

Re:Cynicism

[Rycross]

Bipolar? Schizophrenia? Obsessive-compulsive disorder? There are plenty of real mental illnesses. Depression (as in, real depression, not the normal blues) is a real mental disorder too. You're throwing the baby out with the bathwater here.

Re:Cynicism

[Jurily]

Bipolar?

You just named another imaginary one. Do bipolars have a positive and negative magnetic field?

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

Believe it or not, most doctors are motivated by curing or ameliorating the suffering they see so much of. The best psychiatrist I ever had, when I asked him why he chose Psychiatry as his specialty, explained that in surgery and internal medicine rotations most patients came in to the hospital with illnesses that weren't going to improve, really, despite medical intervention Late stage diabetes, cancer, heart disease, etc. In psychiatry rotations, he got to see patients that were feeling so horrible they honestly wished to die become better because of what he as a doctor could do for them, and that was a tremendously positive experience that he wanted to spend his professional life repeating for others.

Re:Cynicism

[Rycross]

Bipolar disorder is not imaginary.

Re:Cynicism

[Jurily]

Bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression, manic depressive disorder or bipolar affective disorder,

Anything you have four different equivalent scientific terms for is not real. Sorry.

Re:Cynicism

[geekoid]

What the hell? Do you even think about what you post?
All medical practice make Doctors money just lke Cars are here to keep mechanic busy.

Thing break down, mechanics fix them. People ahve medical issue, doctors help them.

Your ignorance on this matter is astounding and is only dwarfed by the size of the universe.

Take a logic 101 course.

Re:Cynicism

[Rycross]

I'm not sure how having different names for the same things means its not real. Otherwise I don't know how I manage to go to the bathroom/toilet/water closet/wash room every day. Care to make an intelligent argument?

P.S. That Wikipedia article cites scientific research/medical information.
P.P.S Insisting that it isn't real, without supporting your assertions, doesn't make it not real. Sorry.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have moderated the above post, but I didn't see a "Stupid" classification.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, I get it now -- you're a Scientologist, railing against Evil Psychology!

Re:Cynicism

[gishzida]

I'm not cynical... I'm optimistically challenged!

Re:Cynicism

[Jurily]

Thing break down, mechanics fix them. People ahve medical issue, doctors help them.

So feeling bad is now a medical issue? Then why are all drugs that make you feel really good, illegal?

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy there, don't get manic about it. Sounds like you need some PharmAmorin.

As for your question, there's always Despondex for those abnormal people who are too upbeat and happy to be suffering from a disorder.

For everyone else, there's always Zoloft for everything or perhaps you need some Placebo, now available in liquid form.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything you have four different equivalent scientific terms for is not real. Sorry.

dihydrogen monoxide, hydric acid, hydrogen hydroxide, oxidane

Re:Cynicism

[yerktoader]

Either you can't brain today, or you're trolling. The terms are most certainly not equivalent, and the first sentence of TFW is reasonably clear about that and most certainly does not call them equivalent in any way shape or form. By the end of the first paragraph, it's abundantly clear that they are very much different, but in common parlance they are used interchangeably.

If you've misunderstood the article, then it's a different story - but I gather from your tone that you either recognize the facts and are simply flying in the face of science because of what you believe, or are simply trolling.

If it truly is the former, then I guess it's simply a mistake. In either of the two latter scenarios....

Re:Cynicism

[twidarkling]

So feeling bad is now a medical issue? Then why are all drugs that make you feel really good, illegal?

The fact that this summary makes it seem ridiculous, the issue isn't "feeling bad." It's feeling "excessively bad to the detriment of your life and well being." Contrary to popular belief, just because you're really sad doesn't make you depressed, and just because you think you deserved that raise instead of that twerp down the hall doesn't mean you have this new one either.

As for the "feel good drugs" being illegal, most of it's politics, coupled with some actually having pretty fucking nasty side-effects if use isn't monitored by a medical professional, hence so many pharmacologicals being illegal to distribute without being a pharmacist.

Re:Cynicism

[__aaclcg7560]

Ironically, I don't think my Cynicism balance is that far out of whack to require a supplement. :P

Re:Cynicism

[kandela]

Bipolar? You just named another imaginary one.

You've got it wrong, it's monopolars that aren't real.

Re:Cynicism

[Alexandra Erenhart]

The problem with some of the mental "suffering" you can find in people, is that sometimes is provoked by the environment, i.e. shitty society we live in (leaving aside REAL mental problems). Then you have to fix the society, and you'd cure many many people. But that's a much harder task to do, sadly.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

So when is Cynicism getting added to an ever expanding list of mental disorders that one more pill can set right?

While they surely have a pill ready, all you need is an irony supplement.

hopefully that irony supplement doesn't taste too bittery...

but i'm sure there's another pill to counter-act that side-affect too.

lol.

Re:Cynicism

[unlametheweak]

The drug companies are the ones who get the money. The doctors only get free golf trips and paperweights with drug logos on them.

There is generally a consultancy fee (i.e. you have to go to the office to be diagnosed). Doctors also (apparently) make money through online diagnosis of various diseases that require narcotics and sedatives, etc.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true! The doctors also get kickbacks. Oh, and the pharmacy employees get free lunch delivered to them regularly. And pens with drug logos on them.

Re:Cynicism

[unlametheweak]

After reading your posts on this subject and your subsequent Karma I can only conclude that you are suffering from Post Traumatic Embitterment Disorder. You should consult your nearest online pharmacy.

Re:Cynicism

[Hatta]

I'd just love to see Conformity declared a mental illness.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

What are all these dangerous chemicals of which you speak???

Re:Cynicism

[somersault]

Wow, so people suffering from post traumatic stress disorder after having to watch people ripped apart by bullets, or those who have phobias from traumatic experiences as kids, or weird chemical issues causing manic/bipolar or just 'regular' depression, OCD, epilepsy etc etc are simply just morons because they need pills to try to live 'normal' lives like you? A lot of people do live in their normal little worlds where they are neither overly happy nor sad all the time and their brains have no significant defects - but as with all things in life, some people lie at the extremes. Some of this will be due to life experience, other parts will be due to genetic factors or perhaps damage in the womb from an accident or a mother who liked to drink, yada yada yada, you get the picture. Yes sometimes people just need to grow the fuck up, and they eventually they usually do, but some people have serious problems. Sometimes it's a mixture of both. I would suggest that you are much more of a moron to pass judgement on things that you apparently have no knowledge of. Yeah, I know we're on slashdot, but even so..

I had written a huuuuuge rant here about how my life was oh so sad and worthy of pity, but you probably don't care. Just be aware that even people who have nothing to really be upset about can still get depressed simply because western life is so incredibly easy and boring. People aren't built for sitting in an office all day doing nothing. I got depressed for other reasons, but I won't list them unless you would like to hear them so that you can laugh at me for being so pathetic as to let it get to me.

Anyway, sorry if you weren't referring to stuff like depression*, and congrats if you were trolling.

* I do agree that doctors hand out pills too easily sometimes, but you do know that it doesn't make them money at all right? It makes the pharmaceutical companies money, but doctors would still be getting paid plenty without hypocondriacs wasting their time. Pawning their patients off onto proper counsellors and/or medication is not making the doctor any more money. Believe it or not a lot of doctors just want to help people (I know some doctors and nurses who regularly go out and do missionary work for free or at least very little pay compared to what they normally get). Of course some people will just be in it for the money, but it is overly cynical to think of all of them that way. You even get some decent lawyers for crying out loud (admittedly NewYorkCountryLawyer is probably the only one, but he still shows that it's possible) :p

Re:Cynicism

[unlametheweak]

Believe it or not, most doctors are motivated by curing or ameliorating the suffering they see so much of.

People don't often believe what they preach. If there was some scientific evidence to back up your claim instead of merely a testimonial then I would take your comment more seriously. I would posit that there are probably some doctors who have achieved the pinnacle of Maslow's "hierarchy of needs", but I've generally gotten the impression that people choose the medical profession for the status and money that it offers. And motivation unfortunately does not beget competence.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

> While they surely have a pill ready, all you need is an irony supplement.

Yeah, but they can't swallow pills that big.

Which is why there's good news!

It also comes as a suppository.

Re:Cynicism

[Kell Bengal]

It is true that motivation doesn't correlate one to one with competence but it is a positive indicator. I'd certainly rather consult a physician who was genuinely interested in medicine than one who was only interested in both. I have seen examples of both in my time and almost without exception the motivated doctor provided better care.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

along with myopic optimism I hope...

Re:Cynicism

[Kell Bengal]

Unfortunately, most recreational drugs remain illegal irrespective of medical oversight. They are only 'legal' if they are serving a medicinal purpose greater than just 'feeling good'.

Re:Cynicism

[Xaedalus]

If I had points, I'd mod you up, sir.

Re:Cynicism

[inviolet]

So when is Cynicism getting added to an ever expanding list of mental disorders that one more pill can set right?

Yes, but what if they really do have a pill that can correct this condition?

Introspect carefully, and tell us whether you object to brain management chemicals in principle. Quite a few people -- mostly those who, I suspect, have brains properly calibrated for present conditions -- do make such objections.

Re:Cynicism

[Frequency Domain]

What are all these dangerous chemicals of which you speak???

I dare you to try drinking them!

Re:Cynicism

[Toonol]

Wow, so people suffering from post traumatic stress disorder after having to watch people ripped apart by bullets, or those who have phobias from traumatic experiences as kids, or weird chemical issues causing manic/bipolar or just 'regular' depression, OCD, epilepsy etc etc are simply just morons because they need pills to try to live 'normal' lives like you?

It might be worth noting that some people do experience those traumatic events WITHOUT being traumatized. They have strong and healthy psyches, for whatever reason. When a person is suffering from some sort of mental problem, one of the first and most important questions should be "can they be made psychologically healthy enough to resolve the problem?" That is really the only sense in which a mental illness can ever be said to be cured.

However, often it is not possible to reach that point, at least immediately. Drugs can ameliorate the symptoms, and sometimes are the only reasonable alternative. Perhaps a depressed person, with enough effort, habit changes, etc., could beat the depression; but a severely depressed person isn't going to TRY. Drugs may help in that sort of situation.

Re:Cynicism

[L3370]

I agree this is nuty. What if I became bitter not because of a single tramatic experience, but because of a hundred non-tramatic, barely annoying experiences? Would that qualify me as a diseased individual? Experiencing trauma is life.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

Step 1: Classify something as illness.
Step 2: Prescribe drugs.
Step 3: Profit!

I want to classify imperfection as an illness. Then I can sell pills to all the people who aren't sexy millionaire athletes with 180 IQs.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a faggot. I support that assertion by noting that you like penis up your ass.

P.S. You really are a faggot.

P.P.S. No seriously, you're a fag.

See, I can be a condescending prick just like you!

Re:Cynicism

[Pav]

Look up Thomas Szasz, one of the great critics of psychiatry. His arguments are well thought out, and most slashdotters could probably respect them (even if they don't agree).

    I first heard of him on a series of "All in the Mind" podcasts from the ABC (the Australian national broadcaster). This program is on the mind, brain and behaviour :
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/stories/2009/2530830.htm (part 1)
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/stories/2009/2536966.htm (part 2) ...and a response from some psychologist (who rebut some arguments, but also admit that the evolution of the psych disciplines actually owe a debt to Szasz) :
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/stories/2009/2544843.htm

Re:Cynicism

[DriedClexler]

I'm not one to buy into the attempt to turn every inconvencience into another officially-recognized psychiatric disorder with a $100 co-pay solution. However, the description did resonate me, and I can definitely see the difference between "normal travails of life" and what they're describing.

Let me tell you a bit of my experience:

In college, I joined a large organization. Soon after, I was kicked out.

So far, no big deal.

But when I was kicked out, I was told that "numerous people" felt "physically threatened" by me, and I had *no idea* why that was. Previously, some people that were nice to me had suddenly turned around and refused to talk to me. Nobody would give me any explanation except extremely kafkaesque ones.

Then, through a coincidental connection I had (cousin's friend had also joined the same time I did) I found that people believed I -- a virgin at the time -- had threatened to rape some of the women there. Soon after, I learned of similar, viscious rumors going on about me.

I filed a formal complaint about this where I explained everything. Then, again by coincidence, I the writeup and the complaint had been destroyed and no one told me they did so. I appealed to another group, who refused to do anything after meeting with me, on the grounds that I "seem so angry" (ya think?). I appealed to the faculty sponsor of the organizations, and got a letter back saying, in a formal tone, "you deserved what you got, bro".

Getting kicked out of an organization is bearable, of course, but without being given any reason why, all while being stabbed in the back and having what reputation I had destroyed? I couldn't stop thinking about it for years and years. I did try to "get over it"; I sought conseling (and was diagnosed with depression and anxiety) and tried to join other groups, but inevitably was unable to form any kind of relationship with anyone.

I've explained my situation on slashdot before (can't find the link right now), and people refused to believe me, insisting that I must have somehow done something wrong. And throughout the whole time, I've noticed that my socialization is fundamentally different from everyone else. People suggest that I do things (in social situations) and then I refuse, saying, "but won't they [do something evil in response]" and people are astounded that I would even imagine something like that.

I also always feel like I'm in some sort of paralysis in my life, where I don't want to make any changes (like join a group, look for work somewhere else) because every concern feels like it's preventing me from addressing the others. "Angry and helpless" described me perfectly. (I use the past tense because I recently got more intensive help and started going to church, where I have more social support.)

Would I meet the criteria if I went in to be evaluated? I don't know. But if this diagnosis enables psychiatrists to carry over the same tools from treating PTSD, then it looks legit. It certainly runs the risk of being overdiagnosed, and it would be a shame if it ended up like ADHD, but the idea itself doesn't sound outlandish.

Re:Cynicism

[otopico]

Hey now, that's not safe. My grand dad drank those things his entire life and DIED!

Re:Cynicism

[anglico]

Actually they are no longer allowed to give gifts of any kind, no more pens, mirrors, or other amenities. I'm not sure if it's a federal law or a California law, but it went into effect this year. They can still cater lunches for the doctors, but it isn't any really extravagant affair, at least not at the clinic I work at, it's usually sandwiches or mexican food.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

A bathroom is a room containing a bathtub and sometimes a wash basin.

A toilet is a receptacle for human waste or used to refer to a room that has a toilet in it.

A water closet is a small room that contains a toilet and a wash basin.

A wash room is a public water closet.

A restroom is a room that combines a bathroom and water closet, having a bathtub, toilet and wash basin.

Re:Cynicism

[TinBromide]

I thought it was hydro-hydroxic acid... Though hydric could just be an abbreviated form for it.

Re:Cynicism

[MichaelSmith]

One person I know with obsessive compulsive disorder constantly blamed outside influences for his problems. When I made suggestions he would immediately fire back with reasons why they wouldn't work. Healthy people find ways to cope with their environment.

Re:Cynicism

[somersault]

Yes I agree. I was on pills for depression a couple of times. After the first time, when I came off the pills it actually made a lot of things worse in the next few months (but at first I didn't realise that was anything to do with the pills, I just thought it was me being weird until I found out what OCD was, and read that citalopram can actually make some patients' symptoms of depression worse rather than help, so I assume it was that that exaggerated the slight OCDish tendencies I had already of worrying, overthinking and obsessing about patterns, numbers, etc). I told myself I'd never go back on pills again, but I eventually did when I ended up incredibly argumentative and frustrated and sabotaging relationships with my friends and family - I realised that I shouldn't have come off the pills in the first place because I was only fooling myself that I was somehow 'better'. I hadn't dealt with the root of my problems.

The second time I made sure to lower the dosage slowly when I came off the pills, and things have been pretty good since despite a couple of situations that would have seriously messed me up beforehand. I definitely have developed new ways of looking at life and coping in general that hopefully mean I won't need to go back on meds no matter what happens.

It's amazing how you can make life so different just by taking a little pill every day. It's scary, in fact, when you think about it. If you ever go on anti-depressants or stop to consider the effects of alcohol, caffeine or other drugs then you will realise how easily that your entire outlook on life can be affected massively by tiny chemical changes. Any tiny problems with either production or reception of certain chemicals inside the brain itself can make it difficult for some people to have what would be regarded as a "strong psyche".. while some are just lucky and seem to be hyperactively happy and positive all the time, blissfully unaware of the world's problems (yeah I'm exaggerating a little, and oftentimes in fact that kind of super-PMA is just a front).

Re:Cynicism

[Rycross]

And in common parlance, they're all use interchangeably for "A room with a toilet." That's just like using technically different names that specific disorders out of a broader classification of very similar disorders. If you like, you can just refer to the Anonymous Coward here who provides a more apt analogy.

Re:Cynicism

[MichaelSmith]

I'd just love to see Conformity declared a mental illness.

You are absolutely right.

Re:Cynicism

[Neuticle]

The doctors only get free golf trips and paperweights with drug logos on them.

Just to clarify, since many people have the misconception that doctors get something every time they write a prescription for anything:

Kickbacks are illegal. When they are discovered, it results in things like jail and loss of license.

The free golf trips went away years and years ago, and I don't think they were ever very common.

Even the free paperweights, pens, clipboards, kleenex box etc were voluntarily stopped last year by the drug companies. Probably because doctors are actually smart enough to not be swayed by the "gift" of a $0.02 pen, and 2c x 800,000 doctors' offices adds up.

"informational" lunches and dinners are still happening, where doctors get free food and listen to pharma whargarrble about $NEW_DRUG_X, and they do get paid if they do actual work for a pharm company as a consultant or researcher, but that is all disclosed AFAIK.

http://www.boston.com/news/health/blog/2008/07/pharma_to_ban_g.html

Re:Cynicism

[HisOmniscience]

Sorry, but you're not a condescending prick. They don't have to try, while you so obviously are.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

Because now the psychologists can all apply for disability.

Re:Cynicism

[flyingsquid]

I think the irony here is that not only do some people feel that life has given them a raw deal, on top of all their other problems they are now regarded as mentally ill. Isn't that just going to make them even more bitter?

Re:Cynicism

[__aaclcg7560]

Without a doubt, this will push some people over the edge. But it really depends on how you view life. If God hands you lemons, do you suck your lemons with salt and tequila, or make lemonade? I should be a prime candidate for this mental illness except I'm really good at making lemonade.

Re:Cynicism

[mokus000]

How can I drink them? They're obviously not real.

Re:Cynicism

[sjames]

There may only be one in existence...

Re:Cynicism

[Artifakt]

To paraphrase Krishnamurti - Not fitting in well to a sick society is not a sign of mental illness.

Re:Cynicism

[jasonmanley]

Wow that was quite an open and honest confession you just laid out there. I am glad that you have found help within the church. I can tell you from experience that if you spend time in prayer and meditation, God's Holy Spirit will work with you to achieve a healing in your iife. Peace comes through the knowledge of God - the more you learn about him the more peace you will find. Be strong in the Lord and meek in his strength.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because a bunch of "doctors" say it's real, that doesn't make it real.

Life sucks, either deal with it, or off yourself. If you use mood altering drugs to help you deal with it, that's fine. But don't hide behind the "it's an illness" banner.

Re:Cynicism

[Artifakt]

A lot of the nasty side effects happen in people who are messed up, and who take the drug to self medicate. When it doesn't overcome the mental illness, or other factors push the person into unsocial behavior and worse, the drug gets all the blame. (Note that I'm not making this claim about Meth or some of the other drugs that will typically mes anyone on them up. From what I've seen Cocaine and Methamphetamine simply don't allow controlled use in the sufficiently long term.).
        For other cases though, look at LSD. Risky? Definitely. Some people are more prone to not being able to tell the difference between external reality and their internal imagery than others - for them, there's no distinction between the drug's 'visions' and the world outside. Then there's the Manson case, which proved pretty conclusively that young people could be brainwashed better under its influence by a charismatic cult leader. At the same time, regular psychiatrists and therapists were getting wonderful results. There were so many studies in the 60's where LSD based therapy seems to have contributed to long term reform of alcoholics, pedophiles, or other criminal or behavior problem types that it's simply amazing that the drug was made schedule 1 in the USA. A drug with an LD50 over a hundred thousand times its effective dose, with the counter-addictive property that after the first use, that effective does simply rises and rises until the subject literally can't get high on it unless they wait a week or two to use it again, and that was getting glowing praise in some psychiatric circles, and it wasn't restricted or controlled, it was simply totally banned. That's politics indeed.
 

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

What the fuck is this? Slashdot or a congregation?

Dude, if you believe in all-knowing, all-powerful wizards who control everything then you have bigger problems than anything you face in reality.

Re:Cynicism

[Artifakt]

There are lots of decent lawyers - as Will Rogers pointed out - Most of the time, when a lawyer is hurting innocent people, he's just doing what the Banker he works for ordered. Factor such cases out, and the rest are about as good and bad as real humans.

Re:Cynicism

[frosty_tsm]

+1 Piety

:-)

Re:Cynicism

[Jurily]

A lot of the nasty side effects happen in people who are messed up, and who take the drug to self medicate.

So what the doctor gives you is better?

One of the reasons that SSRIs (including Paxil, Prozac, Luvox, Zoloft, Celexa) are so widely prescribed by doctors and psychiatrists is because they are safer in overdose. This is obviously a good thing because traditionally the most common form of suicide was to overdose on the very antidepressants which were meant to help relieve the depression.

However, there are two very real dangers with Sari: one that has recently been the basis of an historic court battle in the US.

      1. SSRIs pose greater risks when taken with other drugs, due to their pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties. For example, SSRIs can be lethal when taken with MAOIs.
      2. While being safer in overdose, SSRIs have actually been proven to increase thoughts of suicide or self harm.

It's a nice read.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoa, that's a terrible mindfuck.

But there's one thing you must understand. There is something in life that transcends what you believe you know about consciousness. They know EVERYTHING. Call it instinct, call it what you will, but you are unfit for their society. They will not offer any explanation. You have two choices: lots of prayer, or harsh chemical showers. Some people choose both. The collective consciousness is, in effect, sawing you off like a diseased limb.

By the way, what you've described is how the American intelligence services and corporations punish whistleblowers and other righteous people - threatem them with psych evaluations stacked against their favor by quack doctors, then isolation and humiliation. I'm not posting links, google it and you'll see.

Eh, fuck it. Society is overrated anyway. Time for blackjack and h00kers!

Re:Cynicism

[machine321]

I don't believe you; you must have done something wrong.

Re:Cynicism

[KudyardRipling]

I guess that explains the absence of those cube shaped memo pads with the drug trade names and IUPAC formulas. As for this growing trend of 'everything is a disease', it smacks of the psichushka of the Brezhnyev era.

Re:Cynicism

[Jurily]

After reading your posts on this subject and your subsequent Karma I can only conclude that you are suffering from Post Traumatic Embitterment Disorder. You should consult your nearest online pharmacy.

Actually, it was quite fun to see the mods go crazy. I also got to find out what my karma can handle (Currently, I'm back to excellent by 1 point).

And my nearest online pharmacy only sells "Vgra00".

Re:Cynicism

[sjames]

I suspect pills are used wayyy too often in general, but not because the people they prescribe them to don't need something to help them. They prescribe pills because they don't have the power to prescribe a society that values family time and cutting people slack when they're down or even getting enough sleep. They are powerless to prescribe taking time to feel better, insurance won't hear of it.

Re:Cynicism

[initialE]

Dude, maybe you're a schizo and don't know it. So it's time to ask yourself: Is it really true that the world is out to get me, or
1. do you have periods of time where you can't remember and can't account for your actions
2. do you have an evil twin brother

Re:Cynicism

[Rycross]

Look, Jurily, if you don't want condescension you shouldn't dish it out. I fail to see how my post tops the "Mental disorders are fake and people who have them are just weak" mentality. Or did my "P.S., P.P.S" piss you off somehow?

And no, I don't have a lot of tolerance for people who belittle the problems of others.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears the mods lack a sense of humor.

Re:Cynicism

[Criceratops]

To quote The Tick: "You're not going crazy, Arthur. You're going SANE in a CRAZY WORLD!!!"

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

Having been through something similar (false allegations of rape), I gotta say... sometimes you just have to realize there's nothing you can do. Yeah, I tried, but I realized that the best I could do was thank the authority figures involved for not trying to fuck over my future, accept that life had fucked me over, and move on. Short of producing videotape, there are some charges you just can't fight; and even with videotape you wouldn't get away clean!

No, I didn't escape without some lingering emotional issues and a really bad reputation. But as unlucky as I was to have this happen to me, I realize I'm just as lucky it didn't end far, far worse. I did the only thing I could: I figured out what parts of my personality made it easy for some people to believe the charges, and worked on them. I didn't try to prove to anyone that I was innocent: I knew that would just make them believe the opposite. If anyone asked about the visible changes in my life that happened after the incident, I didn't even try to explain what happened. Instead, I did my best to deflect the question with a (true) answer, like "I was having with some major personal issues".

The bad reputation was (fortunately!) limited to a fairly small community and even there it's mostly gone away by now. Many of the people who originally heard/spread rumors have since left. The rest have gotten to know me better or seen that-- based on what I've done in the intervening years-- I'm not that bad as the vague rumors suggested.

Life is random, sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you get fucked. But the thing about it being random is that it will average itself out eventually, if you let it.

Re:Cynicism

[Xenophon Fenderson,]

Wait, what? Tequila shots aren't what life wants me to do with the lemons it just handed me? I can't believe I had it wrong for so long and no one said anything!

Re:Cynicism

[Xtravar]

Most psychiatrists/psychologists go into their profession because they have their own needs unmet. It's a symbiotic relationship. Read Alice Miller.

Any therapist who was not screwed up at one point in time is not really a good therapist.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

really?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227071.100-hunting-the-mysterious-monopole.html

Re:Cynicism

[Jodka]

I've explained my situation on slashdot before.. and people refused to believe me, insisting that I must have somehow done something wrong.

Not having witnessed the event you describe, I can not say that I believe you. Nonetheless, it is quite similar to actual events which I have witnessed, and therefore highly plausible.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

you are just weak minded.... some day you will grow out of it, hopefully.

Re:Cynicism

[phantomfive]

If you are a tall or big person, here is one thing you might try: instead of standing right in front of someone when you talk to them, stand off to their side, shoulder to shoulder. You can get a lot closer to someone by their shoulder than in front of their face. It is a lot less threatening and feels more comfortable. Being in someone's face can be threatening.

Also might want to check out LVO3. It's some great stuff.

Re:Cynicism

[Thomasje]

I had a similar experience when I was 11 years old. Several acts of vandalism were committed at my school (bike tires punctured) and someone accused me of doing it. (I hadn't.) Pretty soon about half a dozen kids from my class were pointing the finger at me, claiming they'd seen me do it. So, I was found guilty in the court of public opinion, as they say. Luckily our class teacher was a bit more level-headed, realized that there was no evidence and besides, the class ganging up on the scrawny kid that always gets picked on anyway is itself a bit suspicious, but this accusation followed me around for a long time anyway.

Whether it was just that one particularly scary episode, or my history of being bullied for years (I was small for my age, wore glasses, and was the best of my class at everything except sports -- you do the math), I don't know, but eventually I also ended up lonely and paranoid, always expecting the worst from people, e.g. I send someone and email and don't hear back the same day, and I immediately worry that they're angry at me and giving me the silent treatment. That sort of thing. I have gotten over it to a large extent, partly by indulging my frustration by just spending endless evenings by myself, on my couch, getting drunk, on an almost daily basis, for years. I don't recommend the alcohol part -- while it feels good, it is very bad for your health! Still, I was able to work through a lot of that stuff, and slowly (very slowly) regained my self-respect.

The trauma will never go away entirely; once you've experienced cold-hearted cruelty, you've experienced something most people never will, and it destroys some or all of your innocent cheerfulness and spontaneity. The paranoid thoughts will come back from time to time. But, it is possible to return to leading a good, happy life; I can honestly say I am a happy person again. It just takes me a bit more courage to do some things than other people, but even that gets easier with time.

Maybe a shrink would have been able to help me through my bitterness phase more quickly and with less liver damage. I don't trust shrinks, but I could be wrong about that of course; I wouldn't necessarily pooh-pooh the idea of qualifying bitterness as a disorder. Just because it's less bizarre than schizophrenia doesn't mean it isn't potentially serious.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

You're discriminating against us tripolars, you insensitive clod!

Re:Cynicism

[DriedClexler]

Thanks for the input, but I'm not tall -- 5'8/5'9. I think I have something that gives a similar effect though: I broke my collar bone when I was little and had to wear a shoulder harness. What that means is that my "default resting position" for my arms is in front of my torso, like I'm holding two dumbbells vertically in front of my stomach, rather than at my sides like most people. This makes me look really on-edge, and the bolder people point it out to me.

Also might want to check out LVO3. It's some great stuff.

Er, *another* expensive pick-up artist school? I actually tried one of these (not the one you linked) and there, my social disconnect became even more apparent (I did it two years ago, long before joining this church). For example, the coach would ask me to approach a girl, and I'd ask, "what do I say", and he'd roll his eyes and say "dude, I'm not going to give you pick up lines or a magic phrase, that's not how this method works." I was unable to convey to him that I didn't know how to start a conversation with people completely at random.

After the course, I explained the (lack of) results to his overlord, who was surprised and invited me to attend one of his own seminars for free. After that, he gave up and refunded the money I originally spent. Props to him, but not a good sign.

(Digression: Before anyone gives ultra-obvious advice, I'm normal in every other way: I shower, smile non-threateningly, brush my teeth, look people in the eye, introduce myself at groups, etc. When I checked myself into a hospital, the women there all unprovokedly told me I was handsome and had great teeth. I hold a steady non-McJob job.)

***

I also thought I'd use this chance to provide more substantiation my claim of unique similarity to the described symptoms. From the article:

People who feel they have been wronged by someone and are so bitter they can barely function other than to ruminate about their circumstances.

For a while after the event, I brought up my treatment with anyone I met.

People with PTSD are left fearful and anxious. Embittered people are left seething for revenge

The most fucked-up part: the only thing that kept me from killing myself was wanting to make everyone involved suffer to their last breath.

When something unexpectedly awful happens -- they don't get the promotion, their spouse files for divorce or they fail to make the Olympic team -- a profound sense of injustice overtakes them.

The one thing I kept saying over and over the time since then was that my "strong sense of justice" requires revenge.

"Embitterment is a violation of basic beliefs," Linden says.

As noted before, the experience fundamentally -- and incorrectly -- altered my "mental model" of how people interact (though obviously I didn't think of it in those terms at the time; it just felt like having to rule out 99% of the things I used to think were okay to do, and so live my life walking on eggshells).

"These people usually don't come to treatment because 'the world has to change, not me,' "

I was like this, but from a different perspective. The attitude was more like, "This is reality, I'm simply cut off from it." Or in math-nerd terms: "Any transformation on me based in reality has my disconnect as an eigenvector." (And no, a negative-disconnect is not a connect, nice try though.)

Re:Cynicism

[DriedClexler]

Thanks for sharing your experience, I noticed a lot of parallels to mine. You're right about shrinks; most were useless for me.

Re:Cynicism

[zary]

Well, i can find the irony supplements at a drug store, but i think Cyanid- err, Cynicism pills are on the black market, and Google maps won't tell me where the black market is, so will someone please tell me some directions?

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

"Anything you have four different equivalent scientific terms for is not real. Sorry."

You're an arrogant fool, and you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

A person I cared very much died as a result of bipolar disorder. And if you'd made the
remark you so bravely made above to my face, I'd kick your fucking teeth in.

Re:Cynicism

[phantomfive]

So yeah, seems like match the profile pretty well, but so what? What are you going to do about it? I mean, do you want to learn to interact normally in society and get close to people and not feel like you're walking on eggshells all the time? On the other hand if you're happy how you are, there's of course no reason to change.

Also, about LVO3, I don't know who you were working with before, but the best stuff they have is online, and super-cheap, too. Some of it's free, check it out. The 8 traits of charisma is pretty good, and most importantly applies to all areas of your life. http://www.ustream.tv/channel/8-traits-of-charisma I really like it.

Re:Cynicism

[RedBear]

Lucinda Bassett, Midwest Center for Stress and Anxiety. You may have seen her/them advertising a program on late night infomercials called "Attacking Anxiety and Depression". You can find the program on some BitTorrent sites if you don't want to pay to order the course. I have listened to some of their tapes and they have some remarkably down-to-earth and simple methods that could help just about any person suffering from anxiety.

Basically you're taught how to listen to what your inner voice is telling you all day long, weed out the bad things it says and replace them with positive things. We all have an inner voice that is constantly there in the background, influencing our state of mind and our decision-making processes. Normally we don't pay any specific attention to what it's saying. In people who have high anxiety, they soon realize when they pay attention that they are constantly telling themselves stories about how something bad might happen or other negative thoughts that keep them from being able to relax and enjoy life. In people with a positive outlook, the only real difference is that they are always internally telling themselves that something positive will happen, so they make choices to go ahead and do new things even when they aren't certain how it will turn out. If things do go wrong, they tell themselves that things will go better next time. The person with anxiety will instead tell themselves when something goes wrong that the same thing or worse will happen the next time, so they convince themselves to never try doing new things.

It seems simple, and it is. Listen to the tapes and stories of people just like yourself for a few hours and you'll realize that you aren't so unusual and that there is a way to change your own mind from within, without requiring bucketfuls of pills. Lots of people think exactly the way you do and it is completely curable. Seriously, this could help you if you really take the time to go through the simple process they outline. The human mind is an amazingly resilient and pliable thing.

Also, watch Dog Whisperer on National Geographic, and get a dog. If you watch that show for a while you'll realize as I did that dogs are like mirrors, reflecting all of our mental and personality flaws back at us. If you know how to read the signs like Cesar Milan does, your dog can help you become a more mentally balanced person. That guy is about as Zen as Zen gets.

Also, don't feel too bad that you can't connect with a lot of the people you meet. Most people, by definition, aren't really worth connecting with. As the old saying goes, if you have one true friend in life and a thousand "acquaintances", count yourself lucky. The sort of people who would turn their collective backs on you over a rumor are not worth the time it takes to have a passing thought. Once you get some mental balance back you will easily find people with whom you can truly connect. There won't be very many, but you'll find eventually that that's OK.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah. The authority figures involved were just lucky to be in power during the Bush administration; where any man or woman could be illegally inspected and found to be judged guilty, both literally and figuitively without due process. Once Bush left office and the nightmare ended, the once-disreputable Americans such as Michael Vick realized that they would be welcomed back into the worlds that they left in disgrace, with open arms.

The nightmare is over.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

I beg pardon for my anonymity, not my normal practice.

I am sympathetic to your challenges.

Some time ago I worked in a medium sized company. It was during web bubble 1, and we were duly booming along. All good.
Then we went away for a company outing - some days a plane flight away. There was eating, drinking (a lot of that) and general partying.
On our return I got accused of sexual harassment (in writing - I think I eventually threw the letter away, it was too weird). As with your experience it was, indeed, Kafkaesque. I tried to find what they though the problem was - and the best explanation I got was I had taken some pictures of workmates sitting around the pool in bikinis ... I checked (I always did take a lot of pictures - and this was before digital cameras), and there were maybe 10% more pictures of females than males. Gosh. Doesn't sound like a terrible sin.
I couldn't decide what to do - I thought about demanding to face my accuser, etc etc. I eventually wrote a letter of apology (to an unknown person, quite a challenge) and offered to pay a fine to a charity.
And nothing happened. Nothing. No response, no further letters, no request to pay the fine. Nothing.

Eventually the company folded and I went on with life, a little sadder, and a little puzzled.

Still, it could be worse. A good friend of mine was divorced by his wife. Ok, it happens. But she would not tell him why. And he still doesn't know (no, he wasn't cheating and nor was she, friends of hers claim she said she wasn't happy and would not elaborate).
Wouldn't that tear you apart?

Re:Cynicism

[Alpha830RulZ]

I think you and I might have a few things to discuss over a beer. Consider this a +5 insightful.

Re:Cynicism

[Alpha830RulZ]

Introspect carefully, and tell us whether you object to brain management chemicals in principle. Quite a few people -- mostly those who, I suspect, have brains properly calibrated for present conditions -- do make such objections.

How do you feel about coffee? Or nicotine? Or exercise induced endorphins? Some of my favorites, anyway.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

In college, I joined a large organization.

Many of those are run by people who end up becoming politicians. Both having no sort of direct, formal explanation, even after explicitly requesting one and having your complaint destroyed suggests you pissed off some invertebrate who ran it, who then stabbed you in the back.

Never happened to me personally, but I've seen how some of those little Hitlers behave.

Re:Cynicism

[CAIMLAS]

They won't need to. They'll just diagnose them as bitter due to the likely lack of a job - which was caused by their 'cynical' outlook on life.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

:-*

just what I wanted to hear. A kindred spirit in this nasty world. :-P

Re:Cynicism

[CAIMLAS]

Let me guess: you're a somewhat-forward white male. That's like being Hitler in a progressive, coastal campus these days.

Re:Cynicism

[Kazoo the Clown]

Actually, it's quite possible you encountered one of these embittered persons who exhibited some of her own paranoias against you.

While it didn't happen to me personally, I had the occasion to observe an individual (female) who had an interaction with another individual (male) and completely misinterpreted the intent of what was actually an inadvertent action, and immediately flew off the handle and started yelling for the police, etc. It occurred at a social activity in which I was on the organization committee. Shortly thereafter the "offence" became considerably embellished to such an extent that people who weren't even at the event saw its description as completely implausible (including the police investigator, as it turned out). Several of us observed the whole thing from various perspectives and those of us who were the organizers were then involved in a somewhat drawn-out process of assessing, investigating and evaluating the situation, where several people immediately chose sides and were demanding that one or the other or both individuals be banned from future such activities.

The problem with the embittered personality (as it is called here), is they may be oversensitive to other people's actions and misinterpret intents, and unfortunately there may be a gaggle of bystanders who are themselves sensitive and may immediately presume the worst. It's unfortunate, but as some of these stories may show, it happens. At least psychologists are learning more about behavior and personality and may perhaps provide some useful education and diagnosis in the future which may mitigate such occurances.

Those of us with a more even temperment tend NOT to take offence where an action can potentially be inadvertent-- some people say things and the words that come out don't always convey their intended meanings, and some actions people take can be misinterpreted. I think it better to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I'm not embittered or oversensitive in that regard. Not everyone deals with interactions that way, some are quick to take offence and may interpret innocent actions as threatening.

Re:Cynicism

[CAIMLAS]

Society - all of them - is inherently sick. It's composed of people, who are all imperfect, fucked in the head, retarded, etc. etc.

What, do you think some sort of Utopian society can actually exist? Name for me one society which has not been "sick". Failing that, can you present a logical argument as to why one might even be possible?

Honestly, if you think it's possible, you've been reading too much fiction. Our society (western society) is notably less fucked than most throughout history, and the majority of the other ones on this planet, at this time. Can it improve? Yes. But not fitting in isn't a "bad" thing. And not fitting in -does- mean you're unsociable.

(Said the unsociable person who's willing to face reality.)

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound very wise, isolation sure gives time to think matters over and over endlessly. I've noticed same kind of wisdom with many people who, for some reason or other, have been cast out.

Either it gives wisdom or it makes one crazy. (In)voluntary peace from social contacts is strange, it's like we have this built-in parrot, repeating everything we see and hear and experience. If there's not much new to experience each day, it recycles old content for new iterative round and we can refine our conclusions.

If there's much new stuff and happening every day, we tend to be stupider with less iterations on each experience. Makes me feel like a automaton, reactive piece of circuitry if I experience too much without enough time to rest and think in-between.

Re:Cynicism

[eclectro]

Does the irony supplement for cynicism work by making you gay then?

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

Well no, they're words on the internet.

Re:Cynicism

[HoppQ]

Years ago I heard of a study that found out that people who are bullied in school are more likely to have feelings of distrust and paranoia towards other people as adults (not all do, but the statistical difference to people who get through school without being bullied is signifant). Sorry, can't provide the link (heard it on Finnish radio years ago, a Finnish study if I recall correctly).

Re:Cynicism

[phantomfive]

By the way, did your bones not heal right or something? Because that sounds really bad to have your natural position so badly distorted.

Re:Cynicism

[gr8dude]

Do you think it would make a difference if some of your peers were more like you?

I can tell similar stories about myself; but (I think) the difference is that I was brought up to be quite independent (my early childhood years were dominated by interactions with adults, not interactions with kids) so I was less likely to let my thoughts be heavily influenced by "groups of my peers".

Further, if there are people like you around - it will be easier to resist peer pressure, because in this case it is easy to see that the things everyone says about "that one weird guy" are not necessarily true, because there are other "weird guys" too.

Perhaps improving one's social skills is a good solution to such problems?

Later, when I went to a university, I noticed that in the beginning I wasn't very "popular" (in fact, multiple people confessed later that originally they had "blacklisted" me by default, even though there was no reason for that because they didn't know me at all). Fortunately, by that time my independence enabled me to get past that easily, I could just as well exist as a "one man - one team" element; but with said social skills, new links were quickly established and that's how I met some of my best friends.

Re:Cynicism

[Secret Rabbit]

You don't understand what we're dealing with. Let me give you an example. Every once in a while when I'm under normal levels of stress (going to school, work, etc), I go manic. What that means for me is I get an abnormal "boost" of energy where I don't have to sleep, people can't keep up with me, regularly can't understand me because I'm talking to fast and/or slurring my speech too much because I'm talking too fast, my brain is going so much faster than my mouth that my mouth can't keep up so people can't follow my seemingly completely illogical constant stream of words, etc, etc, etc. And that's only if it's a pure manic episode. I can go so far off the rails that sometimes I go psychotic. What that means for me is that I think I can write a book on a topic well beyond me, write an MMO within in a year by myself, among other obviously impossible tasks and there's nothing that anyone can say that will pop reality back in my brain. For me, this lasts for 3 days like clockwork, but I'm not typical. Type NOS exists for people like me. But, by definition, manic episodes last a minimum of 7 days. At any rate, I could give other examples but I think I've made my point.

When it comes to management, it's drugs. Period. If you have a diagnosis that according to the DSM contains the word Bipolar, you are severe enough to *need* them (though some lucky bastards with Cyclothymia can get away with not needing meds). But, it'd be stupid to think that drugs are the only answer. Therapy and stress management are needed *as well*, as although Bipolar is about brain chemistry, there needs to be a trigger to cascade the vulnerable state into an episode. Also, sometimes episodes, if caught early, can be lessened in severity or even avoided altogether through the various techniques learned in therapy.

It really is a balancing act. How much can one do on his/her own and how much meds are needed. Also, which meds? Because, different meds are good for different symptoms and that's assuming the the person can tolerate the drug (some people just can't handle even the smallest amounts of some of them). It's all about a cost/benefit analysis.

The one thing that the shrinks really hate is when someone like me comes along. You know, the person that has actually read the PI sheets, the DSM, the ICD, CANMAT Guidelines, etc, etc, etc and demands to be in control of treatment. Yah, they really hate that. Here's a very brief version of a conversation of me and my second Shrink (including a sit down and voice mails):

Me: I've decided this drug by process of elimination. I've also decided on this titration and the target dose is whatever works. I'm aware it's slow to a level of paranoia. But, that's because...
Shrink: That's too slow, the slowest I'm willing to go with target dose X is...
Me: Absolutely not!
Shrink: Let's compromise. Here's another titration. If you need something slower then do it through your GP.
Me: My GP isn't comfortable with anything but another drug that I refuse to be on. The GP won't do it.
Shrink: If we do it that slow, then we really aren't doing anything. I won't treat you.
Me: I cannot abide people trying to manipulate me. I'm firing you as my Shrink.

So yah, shrinks may suck, but that doesn't mean that the ailments don't exist. It also might be scary to think that something can go wrong with the brain. But, let's be honest here. The brain is an organ just like the liver. Thinking that nothing can go wrong with the brain is just plain stupidity.

Just because you don't understand something, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Re:Cynicism

[repapetilto]

Well what was the organization? Maybe it was just an organization of asshats.

Re:Cynicism

[repapetilto]

While you sleep during church you can dream about it. Speaking of which do they allow water bottles in church these days, I remember having to wait until it was over to go to the water fountain.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

It all comes down to how you respond to the problem. Some people let the issue consume them while others are able to improve themselves. I as well was "picked on" because I was a bit weird and happened to be a bit on the nerdy side as well. I reacted as many of my fellow peers have by getting a great career in the computer industry and doing well for myself.

Recently I ran into an old school "friend" that wanted to tell me all about his exciting career as a cop and show me his 3 day old Mustang that he thought would really impress me. The inevitable question of "what are you driving these days" came up and I really hated to burst the guys bubble but could not help myself. "Well I drove the Porsche behind you today but normally I drive one of my two Mercedes to the office". Suddenly all those bad memories of this guy making my life miserable in school did not matter any more. His effort to impress me with his cheap car, wife and 2.5 kids failed miserably and he could not get away from me fast enough.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

If you ever go on anti-depressants or stop to consider the effects of alcohol, caffeine or other drugs then you will realise how easily that your entire outlook on life can be affected massively by tiny chemical changes.

Somewhat ironically, thats one of the reasons people like doing drugs, it gives you a sense of perspective.

Re:Cynicism

[repapetilto]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelig

Re:Cynicism

[Jurily]

I don't post as AC, ever.

Re:Cynicism

[sy5t3m]

once you've experienced cold-hearted cruelty, you've experienced something most people never will, and it destroys some or all of your innocent cheerfulness and spontaneity.

Cruelty is not something most people have no experience with, it's part of growing up.
You got bullied for wearing glasses, I got crap for having hearing aids, other kids I knew got it because they were fat while others were bullied for being skinny, some were too short, some too tall, some too rich, some too poor, some had permanent snotty noses, one kid got it because his dad was a policeman. It happens to everyone.

The things you've listed as having lost all or part of are lacking in most adults.
Smiling all the time and announcing "Hey, it's tuesday, let's all go to the beach" do not really work beyond the age of puberty.

Re:Cynicism

[risom]

What, do you think some sort of Utopian society can actually exist? Name for me one society which has not been "sick". Failing that, can you present a logical argument as to why one might even be possible?

Not everything ist black and white. To give you an example of effects of societies: In Germany, the amount of stress-related illnesses (mental breakdowns, axieties etc.) in the population has tripled in the last 25 years. That development coincides with the rise of neo-liberalism as the main economical paradigm in Germany. Thats a correlation, no causation, but I predict that, as the economical paradigm shifts again to center more on the human beings it means to support, these illnesses will lessen.

I spent my youth in former Eastern Germany, which, as you may know, had an authorian-socialist economical system. Because the people had way less stress during work, the stress-related illnesses were real low in that system. It's quite clear that the way a particular society is organized has an effect on body and mind of the inhabitants.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps people were treating you this way precisely because you lack or lacked "innocent cheerfulness and spontaneity." There are significant genetic components to such things. Still the science of positive psychology might help you some with that, and perhaps you should look into it. There are plenty of popular-science books about it.

Re:Cynicism

[Saint Fnordius]

Quite true, but this applies to many physical disorders as well. The pollution in the air affects asthma and lung diseases, the food we eat can bring about diabetes, and so on.

The problem with curing a harmful social environment is that there aren't as many "crunchy bits". You can't measure social relationships like you can inanimate particles. And each problem we solve (after all, European society really has gotten progressively better over history) creates new problems (you may not be subject to torture for heresy or "witchcraft", but you now have to deal with complex and confusing social mores, and with suppressing your own fight-or-flight primitive instincts).

I personally think this is a step in the right direction: chronic bitterness poisons a person's health in many ways, but often it needs outside impulses to break the feedback loop. I'm just cautious as to what the proposed treatment is, since there are so many causes for bitterness.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure it isn't. Be sure to watch out for the bipolar bear, the most unpredictable animal on earth.

Re:Cynicism

[Yvanhoe]

See my signature as to why this is a bad idea

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot. Sorry.

Re:Cynicism

[sy5t3m]

A pill to cure cynicism will cause people to misquote? That is a bad idea!

Re:Cynicism

[Flammon]

What's wrong with believing in an all-powerful wizard if it gets you through life happier? Just being the devil's advocate btw.

Re:Cynicism

[LatencyKills]

Admittedly we're talking about close to 30 years ago, but my father told me a story about going to a medical convention, and out in front of the convention hall were women handing out cigarettes to doctors and lighting them. A little farther on is a guy with a clipboard. "Why, what brand of cigarette are you smoking, doctor?" Marlboros - smoked by over 90% of doctors surveyed.

Re:Cynicism

[Ginger Unicorn]

Depends how you define wrong, and the specific baggage brought in with whatever "wizard" you are imagining he might be referring to.

Re:Cynicism

[maxume]

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."

--George Bernard Shaw

Re:Cynicism

[Jaysyn]

Oh look, another mouth-breathing Scientologist has infiltrated /.

Re:Cynicism

[Chreo]

But what about polar bears? Are they real or imaginary?

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I know exactly what we're dealing with. And since I don't think I made myself clear enough, I have no doubt that the drugs can help.

Something I should have mentioned in my first post is that, until 1973, these same "doctors" classified homosexuality as a "mental illness". Did something magical happen to it overnight to cause it to not be a mental illness? Not at all, it never belonged there in the first place.

You can use drugs all you want, I fully support that even if I myself have been too heavily brainwashed by D.A.R.E. to use them. But if you call it an "illness" then you're doing it wrong.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it wouldn't. It would leave me puzzled, for sure, but torn apart? No. I'd say (having witnessed or lived through ugly, depressing and even downright scary couple separations) that it's close to a best-case scenario for a divorce.

Re: Cynicism

[bjflanagan]

Believe it or not, most doctors are motivated by curing or ameliorating the suffering they see so much of.

I live in a well-known university town with an enormous clinical, research & teaching hospital.

There is not one psychiatrist in private practice here who is willing to accept Medicare.

They are more interested in supporting a high-end lifestyle than helping the most vulnerable among us.

I hope they fry in hell.

Re:Cynicism

[Magada]

Healthy people find ways to cope with their environment.

I am here to sincerely wish you to enjoy your future depression brought on by guilt and complicated by being too ashamed to seek help.

Healthy people find ways to cope with their environment most of the time. Sometimes, the situation cannot be coped with, objectively speaking.

People holding beliefs like yours become unhinged in such a situation. More balanced people understand that shit happens and that not everything that happens in one's life is one's personal responsibility.

Simply knowing where your towel is can be challenging enough, at times.

Re:Cynicism

[MonsterMasher]

I recently had a foot bone infection which ended me in the hospital for nearly 2 months in isolation from other patients while they inserted lots of antibiotics. I did see a lot of friendly staff and everything seemed well.

At one point I needed a skin graph and we were discussing where to take the skin from. I was in mixed company (males and well as females) and narced-up and suggested foreskin (it was a huge area - which made it a ridiculous statement) There was a general chuckle. I thought it was pretty good considering my condition. Perhaps not. Oh well.

I didn't realized it at the time, but from that point on most all the female nurses found something sexist or sexually offensive in our conversations. It wasn't until weeks later my doctor mention something about my chart was getting full of comments (and harder to read.) And suggested I might use care in joking with the staff (female nurses) because some were placing objections of offenses in my chart. My medical chart!

I asked to see my chart after that, and there was hemming and howing about how I would need someone here with me to answer questions, and scheduling was difficult. But by this time I had figured it out. The job must lack drama for some of the nurses and I had become the focus of female nurses frustration and bitterness.

I requested and was given a transfer to one of the regular (very busy) floors and immediately and from then on had a very positive experience with staff and got to keep my foot.

A month in physical therapy and I'm still trying to get back some of my regular muscle mass - but that's another story.

Good luck - I hope things go better for you in the future.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

I was small for my age, wore glasses, and was the best of my class at everything except sports -- you do the math.

You were small, wore glasses, were the best of your class and you STILL made other kids do the math? No wonder you were picked on!

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

Who knows. But I wouldn't need any treatment for bitterness if other people didn't suck so much. Maybe if they would put less importance on arbitrary reasons for exclusion and would allow me an opportunity to prove myself... (At least actually let me try at a job, and if I fuck up then theres good reason for keeping me out. It's not like I don't have the right degree and the desk job I'm applying for involves life or death situations.) Or perhaps if they didn't turn their backs when help was needed... Or didn't interfere when help isn't desired... But nooooo.

.

But then again in regards to other mental illness, people wouldn't have slipped into depression until after having some serious shit happen in their lives...

.
Anyhow, in light of this finding, I'm also starting to believe that Idiocracy is looking less like a film that makes a humorous take at social commentary and more like a prediction.
.
Also why is slashdot eating the spacing between my paragraphs? (That's why those periods are there, ignore them otherwise.) Or is the preview function borked?

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

You're experience is pretty much like mine, but in mine, my family were the initial cruel ones. We were a very dysfunctional family and I was the one all the rest would take out their frustrations on. I was bullied unmercifully by my older brother my entire life, and my little brother, 10 years younger than me, tells me I'm not worth knowing, that we can be acquaintances, but never friends.

I grew up trusting no one, believing no one, and being a target for every manipulator and bully I ran into. What's worse, I was punished any time I defended myself from anyone. It didn't matter what anyone did to me, if I defended myself at all I was whipped. Even when the old man was told by the parents of kids who had observed their kid bullying me that their kid deserved what he'd gotten when I'd hit them my old man would wait till they left and then come after me. When my older brother bullied me my old man would stand and watch laughing his head off until I got mad enough to fight back. Then he'd punish me.

Justice was a word unknown in the house I had to grow up in.

Hell, I was even named after someone my parents hated with a passion. My old man hated his step dad because he was an alcoholic and used to come home drunk and beat up his wife back when my old man was a kid, so who was I named after? You guessed it. My old man's step dad. I was named after someone of whom I never heard anyone in my immediate family say a good word.

I'll say this for grandpa though, he and I became buds. It's just too bad we only saw each other once every few years. He would even stand up for me when he saw me being abused. Unfortunately that would only make things worse for me after he left, but at least he tried. As far as I'm concerned, grandpa was the only human being in my family.

So, am I bitter? Yeah, you could say that. Do I have trust issues? You better believe it.

I have an IQ of around 150 and I've never been able to accomplish anything with it because I was taught from day one that I had no rights, that I was stupid, and that everyone else in the world had the right to screw me over. I, amazingly enough, have major issues with authority figures. I just don't trust them and thus will never try to work out any issues with one. I'll just just walk away to get out of the situation, or have a major melt down when/if I get angry enough, because the lessons my entire family beat into my ass for years still stick with me.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

There is cruelty, and then there is real cruelty. Most people experience the first but never the second. The first comes from an occasional bully. The second is cruelty that is systemic to a person's life, that alters their perception of the entire world. The vast majority people, at least in the world's wealthier countries, never experience that.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

Believe it or not, most doctors are motivated by gaining more of the money they see so much of.

There, fixed that for you.

While I am sure SOME doctors are as noble and self-sacrificing as you think, I have worked with the people who get to write/enforce the laws that make sure the other 99% don't steal all of our money while poisoning us.

Just trust me when I say that eight years of medical school and a four year residency are not nearly long enough to train most doctors let alone convince any of them that medicine is not simply a way to become rich.

Re:Cynicism

[toppings]

You seem to really relish belittling your "friend's" accomplishments. Hmmm, why does this sound familiar? Oh, right, that's just what they did to you, and it was wrong for them to do it then, but now, it's justified for you to do it now?

So I guess hate fuels the Porsche of your own insecurity. Your hate wagon now tailgates the 3-day-old Mustang of pure love. Listen, guy, you need to let love win.

You can learn to find joy in others' joy, even people you don't like. You will find yourself a happier person.

Re:Cynicism

[MrKaos]

Thanks for the input, but I'm not tall -- 5'8/5'9. I think I have something that gives a similar effect though: I broke my collar bone

Have you tried finding a (good) chiropractor? I suffered in a similar way except my shoulders were hunched up like a shrug. people said that I always looked like I was on edge. After the chiro started loosening me up my shoulders started to relax and I also felt more relaxed and more confident and relaxed. Also massage in a big way, it does hurt but it also loosens you up. I mean proper physio therapy massage, not lightweight massage, deep muscle massage.

Digression: Before anyone gives ultra-obvious advice,

Ok, what about non-obvious advice. Are you wearing enough deodorant? So basic, but no one will tell you, no one told me that I stank. How could I tell, it's not as if you can smell your own hormones. I'm not being narky here btw, so I hope I don't come across as such.

I also thought I'd use this chance to provide more substantiation my claim of unique similarity to the described symptoms.

I wish I couldn't relate.

it just felt like having to rule out 99% of the things I used to think were okay to do, and so live my life walking on eggshells

As long as those things you are ruling out are not confronting people right then and there that have wronged you. Basically people are going to roll over you if they think they can, don't let them. You may crush a few relationships as you go on but the relationships you actually succeed in building will be based on respect.

"This is reality, I'm simply cut off from it."

and the crap thing about it is no-one wants to spend much time around you. It's hard to dig you way out of that hole, I can't say I have but it was important to recognise that this is the beginning of suicidal thoughts - fight hard and break that pattern. I recognised that line of thinking because I had the *exact* same thoughts and I fucking hated feeling that way. As stupid as it sounds I found salvation when feeling that way at a chinese restaurant with strangers. A horse was picked for me and won at 10:1 odds I picked up a fortune cookie and it said quite simply "find new horizons". It was a profound message and I resolved to replace that thinking and feeling with this new idea. I hope that it helps you.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Both my mother and my alcoholic father were teachers at the school I attended. That was enough to turn public opinion against me.
Cruelty -- Check.
Ostracism -- Check
Loneliness -- Check
Bitterness -- Check

Then I had kids of my own, two wonderful well adjusted children with tons of friends. Guess what? It turns out they felt the same way I did as a kid at times, they just don't dwell on it. I did. That is the difference between whatever 'normal' is and what I felt.

And yes, I went to a psychologist appointed by the school to deal with my 'problems'. He hid a tape recorder in a desk drawer and played it for my father who then went home and yelled at me about how embarrassing it was for him.

"I'm much better now." -- John Aston

Re:Cynicism

[Alexandra Erenhart]

chronic bitterness poisons a person's health in many ways, but often it needs outside impulses to break the feedback loop.

I completely agree with you on that. Usually problems like bitterness and depression are affected by a constant negative loop that they can't break through. Giving them a way to stop it and look at things in a different way makes things much better. But I'm still not quite sure that drugs are the answer to that.

Re:Cynicism

[thesandtiger]

Actually, that's not all you can do. You can help people in those environments learn skills that will help them process (healthfully) the shit they have to deal with. Interestingly, if you do this with enough individuals in those environments, it tends to have an overall positive effect in making that environment less toxic.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

According to google hydrogen hydroxide doesn't seem to be what you think it is.

Re:Cynicism

[csartanis]

What organization?

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

Water. (yes, I knew it was a joke.)

A less obvious (and less funny) example might be:

1,3-Benzodioxole-5-carboxaldehyde; Geliotropin; Heliotropin; Heliotropine; Piperonaldehyde; Piperonylaldehyde; Protocatechuic aldehyde methylene ether; 3,4-(Methylenedioxy)benzaldehyde; 3,4-Bis(methylenedioxy)benzaldehyde; 3,4-Dihydroxybenzaldehyde methylene ketal; 5-Formyl-1,3-benzodioxole; Benzaldehyde, 3,4-(methylenedioxy)-; Dioxymethylene-protocatechuic aldehyde; 3,4-Methylene-dihydroxybenzaldehyde; Blue P; 1,3-Benzodioxole-5-carbaldehyde; Heliotropine (Piperonal); Piperanal

Those are all the same thing - and that's a fairly small molecule too! (C8H6O3)
 

Re:Cynicism

[EvilBudMan]

--There were so many studies in the 60's where LSD based therapy seems to have contributed to long term reform of alcoholics,--

That's because the ones doing the studying were on LSD too. Timothy Leary equidistantly got it banned for running his mouth about it too much, Then it got to the higher ups that said make it stop and they sorta did. Not too much LSD in the US any more but worse stuff like what the shrinks prescribe now.

Re:Cynicism

[EvilBudMan]

--Pawning their patients off onto proper counsellors and/or medication is not making the doctor any more money.--

It can if they get kickbacks and the PCP usually gets you back because he will then prescribe what the specialist did as long as there is a record of it. They bounce you all around and back and forth to get all they can sometimes.

Of course some doctors are this way and some aren't.

Re:Cynicism

[mokus000]

I imagine it depends on the church. I don't think I've ever been to one that would've cared.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

You may have been the victim of bullying, plain and simple. It's amazing what some people can do if they decide they don't like you and sufficient groupthink builds up about you among immature, mean people. Happens in the workplace all the time, just like the schoolyard. But some environments and people are definitely much worse for this than others. You may have been unlucky, or, perhaps some of your behaviors did set something off that got out of hand. Bullying however is a very real phenomenon, and not just among children.

Re:Cynicism

[Bryansix]

The problem here is that shrinks can only deal with issue internal to you; the patient. They cannot deal with externalities that arise from other people's actions. Sometime the core issue is learning forgiveness and sometimes the core issue is issuing justice. This is especially true with an ongoing problem. Justice just needs to blindly smite those who tread on her.

Re:Cynicism

[Knara]

Maybe so, but there's a huge number of things in the world we can do little or nothing to change. Learning to cope with just about any situation is a survival skill.

Re:Cynicism

[Bryansix]

OCD is most likely a symptom of another root cause. Same with Depression and now Bitterness. It all goes back to trying to lump people with similar symptoms into a pot and throw some drugs at them. It works for some and not others. Why? Because Doctor's are lazy, or overworked and don't want to use the Scientific Method of determining the root cause of the problem.

Re:Cynicism

[Bryansix]

This one has five terms to it's safe. It's IF AND ONLY IF it has four scientific terms that it is not real.

Re:Cynicism

[Secret Rabbit]

The sad thing is that you don't know what you're talking about yet don't know it. Another sad thing is you are using half-truths and, at best, sophistry to support your point of view i.e. comparing apples to oranges is not valid.

But, since you bring up the gay thing, I would ask you, under what circumstances do you think might happen in the next decades, that would make people becoming so depressed that they commit suicide ok? Really, what would happen that would make that normal? How about mania? Or psychosis? Bipolar isn't something that makes someone feel icky that is against some peoples morals. It's something that is morality independent. And that shatters your little "gay argument."

Btw, I was in a similar thing to DARE when I was a teenager. There IS a difference between cocaine/meth/etc and Olanzapine or Lithium or Valproate, or... you know. The former being used for recreation with the latter being used to correct problems.

My brain doesn't work properly; it goes wacky from time to time. Many other people have similar issues whether it's Bipolar or otherwise. Our brains need correcting and drugs are the only thing that can do that. You not liking that doesn't make it any less true.

But, I really cannot tell you how asinine your opinion is. Because, by using your logic, diabetes isn't an illness. And that's just so wrong it isn't funny.

Oh, and if you decide to reply again, it'd be nice if you'd have an actual argument. Because, I gotta say, anecdotes and repeating your opinion over and over again, do NOT constitute an argument.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an evil twin brother he's always getting me into trouble. One of these days I'm gonna have to hunt him down and kick his arse.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you should get evaluated. Getting that out of the way will do you a world of good regardless of the diagnosis.

Re:Cynicism

[Anonymous Coward]

And now we begin the new nightmare. After all, those same policies that you despise are still in effect. What? You thought someone like Obama and his posse would just make the policies go away when they can use them to such great effect? Have you heard any serious debate over the new regime? How 'bout those who had these tactics used against them during the campaigns? You remember "Joe the plumber," right? Yeah, they dug through his tax history (IRS), employment history, and education history, and decided it was worth printing and reporting on for all to see. Was he a candidate? No, he was a private citizen! But he did ask a question that a lot of people didn't like Obama's answer to. Suddenly he found himself unable to get work and he starts feeling all kinds of governmental heat raining down on him! All for asking a single, relevant question that a lot of people didn't like the answer to. Is this the kind of thing that you're talking about? The end of the illegal inspections and the judgment of guilt-by-accusation? Really? What universe are you talking about here? After all, how much of that heat would you want raining down on you for asking a single question?

Re: Cynicism

[Dripdry]

Would you work hard for 10+ years just to get paid beans?
Besides, it's VERY hard to get Medicare to pay anyway, I believe, so you have to do double work for something that gets you very little.

Re:Cynicism

[jasonmanley]

Does "not believing" bring baggage with it and can I have the right to discount atheism on grounds of the baggage?
My feeling is that we all have baggage - it is the human condition. I was born in South Africa during the apratheid days and I never ever whipped a black man or did anything overtly racists (subtly - I wonder). But when I started to get invoved with non-whites there was an attitude toward me that I felt I didn't deserver - but then I figured out that it was 1 000 000 time bitten - very shy.
I guess religion is like that.
People know more about what christians are AGAINST than what they are ABOUT.
And usually they seem to be against most liberal lifestyles and laws.
but hey no one is perfect we are all just trying to figure it out as we go right? I know I am.

Pschyciatrists

[Jurily]

need to be shot.

What's this shit again? New diseases, new hourly rates?

Maybe we need some human beings as psychiatrists every now and then.

Re:Pschyciatrists

[node 3]

You sound bitter...

Re:Pschyciatrists

[Emb3rz]

Yes, mmhmm. How does that make you feel?

Re:Pschyciatrists

[DarrylM]

What do you think about maybe we need some human beings as psychiatrists every now and then?

</drsbaitso>

Re:Pschyciatrists

[Anonymous Coward]

need to be shot.

Hey, Scilon, the French-Government-vs-UFO-cult championship bout was last night and a dozen threads ago :)

Re:Pschyciatrists

[pieisgood]

Better stop posting on /. Jurily. Your e-meter rating drops a point for every post you make.

Re:Pschyciatrists

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a cunt.

Re:Pschyciatrists

[berbo]

Eliza, is that you?

Now that Obama is President...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and Bush isn't, so now it's conservatives who are bitter rather than liberals.

How convenient....

American Liberals

[DigiShaman]

Hah, libs are all nuts. I love it! I have yet to meet a liberal who was happy or content with their lives.

Re:American Liberals

[jayme0227]

Well, technically you still haven't met me, but.. I'm a liberal who is generally happy content with my life. I would say I have never met a conservative who isn't a racist bastard, but that stereotype doesn't quite cover all of you. That said, why has this become a liberal vs. conservative or Bush vs Obama issue? This is an idiot psychiatrist vs. common sense issue. The human existence has long been one of suffering, ergo many people are bitter. That's the way it works. Don't even get me started at the overdiagnosis of ADHD or the confusion between sadness and depression.

Re:American Liberals

[Red Flayer]

I have yet to meet a liberal who was happy or content with their lives.

That's because, in general, liberals realize that there are tons of real problems out there that should be solved.

Ignorance is Bliss, it's been said, and I find the corollary, "Understanding is Unhappiness", to be the cause of typical liberal cynicism.

I'd also note that all the happy conservatives I've met are those who are deliberately ignorant, or just plain without conscience.

Re:American Liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd also note that all the happy conservatives I've met are those who are deliberately ignorant, or just plain without conscience.

Or just plain dumb.

Not all conservatives are stupid, but stupid people tend to be conservative.

Re:American Liberals

[DigiShaman]

That's because, in general, liberals realize that there are tons of perceived problems out there that should be solved.

There, fixed that for ya. "Real" and "Perceived" do not mean the same thing.

Re:American Liberals

[4D6963]

An unspoken rule of arguing : never make a claim that can be disproven with a mere anecdote.

In other news, I know lots of liberals who are very happy with their lives!

Re:American Liberals

[femtobyte]

So you don't think there are any "real" problems out there that need to be solved? Poverty, homelessness, starvation, war, and genocide are all things of the past or "perceived" figments of my bleeding-heart-liberal imagination? I suspect you may be a very blissful person...

Re:American Liberals

[ebuck]

Every real thing is perceived too, unless the observer is just too blind to perceive it.

Re:American Liberals

[DigiShaman]

Poverty, homelessness, starvation, war, and genocide are all things of the past or "perceived" figments of my bleeding-heart-liberal imagination?

What's I find ironic is that it's liberal ideology that causes these thing through the micromanagement of others.

For example, the UN involvement in Africa is only making matters worse. If there's oppression to be found, don't dance around it, WIPE IT OUT. By force if necessary. Just take the bull by the horns and fucking solve the problem. It shouldn't be made more complicated then that. When you do, it makes for more "worrying" because now the issue has gone from bad to worse.

Re:American Liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because, in general, liberals realize that there are tons of real problems out there that should be solved.

They do? Why do they keep inventing so many solutions for problems that don't exist then?

Re:American Liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

So are all the happy liberals ignorant as well? Are the unhappy conservatives enlightened?

Most of the happy people I have met, either liberal or conservative, are that way because they don't let politics ruin their life.

Re:American Liberals

[Rob the Bold]

If there's oppression to be found, don't dance around it, WIPE IT OUT. By force if necessary. Just take the bull by the horns and fucking solve the problem. It shouldn't be made more complicated then that. When you do, it makes for more "worrying" because now the issue has gone from bad to worse.

Since you've got all the answers, take your brilliant plan and just do it. Make sure to post your triumph on Slashdot so we can learn the secret of "taking the bull by the horns and fucking solving the problem". I know we'd all like to hear that story.

Re:American Liberals

[DigiShaman]

You wouldn't like my plan as it involves warfare against dictatorships. Because you know, that would just be "evil" of me or some such notion.

By going after the root cause, it solves many problems. Liberals hate warfare regardless of the results however. They would rather support the people of a nation while those same people continue to be raped and beaten into submission.

Re:American Liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

i too tag people with labels as a way of dealing with my own insecurities

pleased to meet you

Re:American Liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

My problem is too many idiot liberals trying to "solve my problems" for me. That, and taking public money to solve everyone's problems for them.

Re:American Liberals

[compro01]

I disagree about warfare against dictatorships. While that may eventually deal with the root cause, it causes too much collateral damage and is very expensive.

The optimal move would be warfare against dictators and remove the root cause directly with minimal to nil collateral damage and substantially lower cost.

Though there are the obvious problems with this;

a. It's substantially trickier.

b. It's very vulnerable to abuse towards your (the attacking country or leaders thereof) own interests, rather than those of the people living under the dictatorship.

Re:American Liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

You wouldn't like my plan as it involves warfare against dictatorships. [...] .By going after the root cause, it solves many problems.

Yeah, those liberal dumbasses should have a look at Iraq or Afghanistan if they think that kind of stuff doesn't work.

Re:American Liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd also note that all the happy conservatives I've met are those who are deliberately ignorant, or just plain without conscience.

This is pure silliness.

Re:American Liberals

[CoolCalmChris]

Ignorance is Bliss, it's been said, and I find the corollary, "Understanding is Unhappiness", to be the cause of typical liberal cynicism. I'd also note that all the happy conservatives I've met are those who are deliberately ignorant, or just plain without conscience.

Or "If I didn't know any better, I'd be better off."

Re:American Liberals

[Rob the Bold]

You wouldn't like my plan as it involves warfare against dictatorships. Because you know, that would just be "evil" of me or some such notion.

So that's the plan? Invade dictatorship, depose dictator, be greeted as liberators? I can't understand why those "liberals" don't like it. It is uncomplicated. Simple, even. You did remember to mention the children with flowers, right?

Re:American Liberals

[DigiShaman]

Being greeted by liberators and children with flowers would be nice, but that's not the reason to liberate a country from dictatorships and oppression. You don't because it's the "right thing to do" for the sake of humanity.

I can't understand why those "liberals" don't like it. It is uncomplicated. Simple, even.

Because simple and uncomplicated solutions often devoid liberals of the power to micromanage. It makes them feel powerless and not in control of the situation. They hate that.

Re:American Liberals

[femtobyte]

Have you ever considered that you might be horrendously ignorant in lumping all liberals together as people who's ideal is "micromanagement"? I suggest you try reading some political writings by "far-left" liberals like Chomsky, who tend towards left-anarchism (the book "Understanding Power" is a good place to start). The major driving concept of much of the "far left" is the abolishment of all unjustified authority that subjugates some humans under the oppression of others. It's kind of like libertarianism, except not willfully blind and ignorant to the fact that the accumulation of vast riches and capital by a tiny minority leads back to just as horrible coercive authority and enslavement as any "big government" nightmare.

The micromanaging, coercive liberals you probably have in mind are just the "centrist" liberals who are bought and paid for by the same type of big-money interests that own the Republicans, too (hence, the ones usually elected) --- the liberals that still believe in the Capitalist and "market solutions" claptrap that perpetuates the interests of a wealthy, powerful elite. So many of the problems in Africa and around the world have come from allowing Western megacorporations to exploit and pillage under the guise of the "free market," actively destroying attempts at local, community-based organization and production. Third-world countries are coerced into dependence on foreign technology --- pesticides, fertilizers, crop strains, pharmaceuticals --- sometimes through disgustingly hypocritical methods like selectively dumping "food aid" or "medical aid" in targeted areas just long enough to drive local producers out of business. The UN and mainstream liberalism aren't to blame for the world's problems; they are just pawns of the global corporatist hegemony.

Re:American Liberals

[merreborn]

Poverty, homelessness, starvation, war, and genocide are all things of the past or "perceived" figments of my bleeding-heart-liberal imagination?

What's I find ironic is that it's liberal ideology that causes these thing through the micromanagement of others.

For example, the UN involvement in Africa is only making matters worse. If there's oppression to be found, don't dance around it, WIPE IT OUT. By force if necessary. Just take the bull by the horns and fucking solve the problem. It shouldn't be made more complicated then that. When you do, it makes for more "worrying" because now the issue has gone from bad to worse.

Because warfare, unlike foreign aid, is consequence free.

Re:American Liberals

[gigabites2]

Being greeted by liberators and children with flowers would be nice, but that's not the reason to liberate a country from dictatorships and oppression. You don't because it's the "right thing to do" for the sake of humanity.

What if it's not? In our world, from our perspective, maybe. What about from the perspective of someone else? Take the Chinese for example. The majority is satisfied or at least indifferent with the government. Just because that's how we do in America doesn't mean that's how everyone else should do it. It certainly doesn't give us the right to force it on everyone else either.

Re:American Liberals

[NeutronCowboy]

Thankfully, we've got plenty of counter examples. Bush tried it in Iraq, Clinton tried it in Somalia and Bosnia, and the end-result is the same old cluster-fuck.

Warfare is not a solution. It's merely a different approach to resolving political differences.

Until you get that, your opinion on the matter matters not.

Re:American Liberals

[Falconhell]

"don't dance around it, WIPE IT OUT"

You mean like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam, cause it worked out so well there.

Re:American Liberals

[DigiShaman]

Iraq is success story. Each year post invasion, the rate of unemployment went from 50-60% in 2003 to 23-38% in 2009.

Since the peak of 1980, the nominal GDP of Iraq has steadily shrunk to merely $12.3 billion in 2000. However removal of sanctions, after the overthrow of Saddam, had immediate effect. The nominal GDP had reached $55.4 billion by 2007 due to increase in oil output as well as international prices. In 2006, the real GDP growth was estimated at almost 17 percent. Wikipedia

Clinton tried it in Somalia and Bosnia.

And it was an epic failure because he never followed through. When engaging a war, you will always lose when doing it in a half-assed manor. You're either committed or not. No exceptions.

Obama had better take note of this when dealing with Afghanistan. Success is obtainable as it's all about will power. Does this administration have the will power to see this through the next 10 years? One would hope it does.

Warfare is not a solution.

When dealing with tyranny and oppression, it's the only solution. Not simply A solution. If you can point out the contrary to me, by all means do so.

Re:American Liberals

[NeutronCowboy]

Each year post invasion, the rate of unemployment went from 50-60% in 2003 to 23-38% in 2009.

Nice. I'm not sure Iraqis consider 23%-38% unemployment a success. As of now, it's a craptastic hellhole. It's an open question whether future efforts can stabilize the country, or whether it will be torn apart.

When dealing with tyranny and oppression, it's the only solution. Not simply A solution.

I see you completely missed the point in that statement. War does not exist outside the political sphere, outside the realm of human interaction. As for counter-examples, you can start with Hannibal's campaign against Rome. A spectacularly successful war, which still ended with Carthage ceasing to matter within Hannibal's lifetime.

Re:American Liberals

[lgw]

Here's some advice towards happiness from a conservative who is neither ignorant nor without conscience: if you didn't break it, and you can't fix it, stop worrying about it. It is simply not your job to fix all the problems in the world. Your shoulders are not that broad, and you're not expected to carry that weight.

Instead, focus on this: stop screwing up your own life. Stop screwing up other people's lives through your direct, measurable actions. Take responsibility for (i.e., work to make better) the unintended consequences of your actions. Make your own life good, and spread the goodness to those nearest you. These are things you can actually do.

Do these things and you'll be happy, because you'll be productive and a service to your community. Spending all day worrying about shit you can't affect in any way just makes you a useless (and sad) lump.

Re:American Liberals

[DigiShaman]

Nice. I'm not sure Iraqis consider 23%-38% unemployment a success. As of now, it's a craptastic hellhole.

Oh? And it wasn't a hellhole before the invasion? And to top it all off, your comparing their standard of living now to long standing western and eastern democracies within a short period of time? That's intellectually dishonest of you, and you know it!

These things take time, and it's progressing rather well all things considering.

I see you completely missed the point in that statement. War does not exist outside the political sphere, outside the realm of human interaction. As for counter-examples, you can start with Hannibal's campaign against Rome. A spectacularly successful war, which still ended with Carthage ceasing to matter within Hannibal's lifetime.

In what way did I miss the point? Your example of Hannibal seems to have made it for me. That is, tyranny and oppression can only be dealt with through force. That's exactly how Hannibal handled it too against the Roman Empire. Of course, success is never guaranteed...

Re:American Liberals

[phantomfive]

Man, you must not live in the bay area. Liberals here are so naive sometimes. You wouldn't believe how many people I've talked to who actually thought Bush was going to call martial law and cancel the election before Obama could get voted in. To get to that level of idiocy you almost need to be wilfully blind. Idiocy is not one sided.

Re:American Liberals

[TimSSG]

I like the way liberals invent solvable reasons why the obvious solutions will never work; and, claim the solvable issue can NOT be solved. Example, problem Global Warming; solution Nuclear Power. I posted about it when Union President Obama stopped the work nuclear disposal system out west. The posters on this site said the main reason Nuclear Power would not work is NIMBY; that is a fixable problem; if, the US Government and Press would do its job of explaining the Nuclear Power pros ans cons compared to all other major Electrical generation systems. Tim S PS: I am pro solar and wind; I just know they are not yet ready to supply all the USA power needs.

Re:American Liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDvSNRFamOU

Re:American Liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

Was it the place for and responsibility of the Americans to intervene?

Re:American Liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh? And it wasn't a hellhole before the invasion?

The US liberation made it a real hellhole. Death estimates are in the range 100k - 1500k.

The only way to get rid of a dictatorship is the people getting rid of it.

Re:American Liberals

[Saint Fnordius]

Hah, libs are all nuts. I love it! I have yet to meet a liberal who was happy or content with their lives.

You sound quite bitter about it.

On a more serious note, progressives are by definition never satisfied; they feel that there is always room for improvement. This is not bitterness, however. It is more like a painter always trying to improve the picture, never satisfied with what he's made. The opposite is the conservative, who thinks things used to be better in the past and tries to recapture that ideal moment. Both can become bitter when they are set back for prolonged periods.

And by the way, you do realise that the opposite of the Liberal is the Authoritarian, don't you?

Re:American Liberals

[Saint Fnordius]

"The cure is quite simple: we merely amputate the head."

Re:American Liberals

[dugeen]

I expect that if you slaughtered 60,000 civilians in any country, and sparked off a civil war in which a further 600,000 died, that would cause a material decrease in unemployment. Good news for the survivors no doubt.

Re:American Liberals

[adolf]

It all depends. Is there oil there?

Re:American Liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody "WIPED THEM OUT". That's why they're still a problem.

Re:American Liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

What's I find ironic is that it's liberal ideology that causes these thing through the micromanagement of others.

Correct! Centralized control with broad sweeping measures typically fails. Local problems are best solved with local solutions. By the way, “liberal ideology” does not promote government micromanagement. The Wikipedia article on “Liberalism” states its “support for: freedom of thought and speech, limitations on the power of governments, the rule of law, an individual's right to private property, and a transparent system of government.” Please get off the neoconservative bandwagon that attempts to paint liberals and conservatives as polar opposites. Go review your American history with particular attention paid to the party shifts that occurred when Jefferson ran against Adams.

For example, the UN involvement in Africa is only making matters worse. If there's oppression to be found, don't dance around it, WIPE IT OUT. By force if necessary. Just take the bull by the horns and fucking solve the problem.

Wrong. You just traded one failed policy for another. If you go in with guns blazing, you are still trying to micromanage from higher levels. The correct answer is: not your fucking problem.

It shouldn't be made more complicated then that. When you do, it makes for more "worrying" because now the issue has gone from bad to worse.

“It” is always more complicated than you think, no exceptions. Nearly any large-scale action is going to have severe unintended consequences. Are you familiar with Iraq?

(Funny. CAPTCHA is “warfare”.)

Re:American Liberals

[evol262]

Hellhole is relative. By your definition, probably. Yes, they had secret police and a fairly oppressive government. They also had sanitation facilities, power, and other infrastructure which we bombed out upon invasion. They had competent public servants with decades of experience who we promptly declared criminals when we outlawed The B'aath party. Employment rates were higher before the invasion. While this may turn out for them in the end, it's far from decided, and as it stands, they're worse off by every measurable economic metric. GDP is rather an unfair comparison unless you compare it to pre-sanction levels, and using numbers from 2003 (brutal sanctions, Iraq couldn't sell oil, just starting to recover from the global recession in 2001-ish) is utterly disingenuous, not that you probably care.

Please explain how Hannibal handled a nonexistent entity (the Roman Empire). It was the Roman Republic. He spent 15 years in Italy, and was unable to come to a decisive finish due to Carthaginian authorities diverting resources to Iberia and Roman control of the sea (preventing Hannibal from getting siege equipment that would let him take major cities), combined with trouble at home (Numidia specifically). Initial success (including what is possibly the most crushing defeat in military history for the Romans), left to languish with limited manpower, dwindling public support in Italy, and multiple fronts from the home government. The Romans (Fabius Maximus) took to a strategy of harassment and delay without any open engagements. Sound familiar? It's an oft-repeated story, yet somehow people convince themselves that "quick, decisive" wars will automatically "shock and awe" the native populace like life is a video game.

As an aside, the Punic wars had fuck-all to do with "tyranny and oppression." They were purely power struggles, with neither side being particularly virtuous. Unless I'm mistaken, "tyranny and oppression" can also be dealt with through other means (British India being a notable example, though there are others historically). Most of the time, dealing with "tyranny and oppression" through force leads to another radical in power when the "force" isn't pressing anymore.

Re:American Liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

You are terribly misinformed.

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=93

Educate yourself.

Re:American Liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

"half-assed manor"

Tell me, who is the lord of Half-Assed Manor?

Re:American Liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiots like you ruin the world.

Re:American Liberals

[Rob the Bold]

Iraq is success story.

If that were true, I'd hate to see what a break-even looks like.

Re:American Liberals

[Rob the Bold]

"half-assed manor"

Tell me, who is the lord of Half-Assed Manor?

Wasn't that a short-lived British sitcom in the '70s?

where's my weewee?

[IlluminatedOne]

It also appears to have no avenue of sexual expression. That too, can be embittering.... All kidding aside, wtf??? I better not be paying into some disability fund for all the cantankerous bastards I know out there...

Pfft

[wandazulu]

Yeah, whatever.

Re:Pfft

[$RANDOMLUSER]

So all developers are ipso facto mentally ill? It would explain quite a lot.

Re:Pfft

[braingram]

I was thinking the same thing about every grad student. Treated unfairly, angry, helpless... that about sums it up.

I resemble that remark

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I have Asperger's. Diagnosed, not self-diagnosed like so many on slashdot.

Bitterness as a symptom of my Asperger's. This would explain a lot of the "delusions of inadequacy" side of my personality. I work so hard at some stuff that I'm just incapable of, like having a real career where I'm not exploited.

A lot of my paranoia is related to this as well.

I'm so lucky to be in a company now that respects my talents, and allows me time to deal with my mental illnesses; but not everybody is that lucky.

Re:I resemble that remark

[Jurily]

This would explain

There we have it, boys and girls. "I didn't fuck up my life, the doctor told me so."

Re:I resemble that remark

[Anonymous Coward]

> Diagnosed, not self-diagnosed like so many on slashdot.

This is reassuring to know. I understand that Aspergers is real but have yet to meet _anyone_ who's been diagnosed by anybody other than Dr. Google. I find it frustrating, because it detracts for the _real_ illness.

I know one guy in Seattle who was self-diagnosed and unable to work as a result. His parents paid his rent, paid for his Volkswagen camper van and bought him a (then) fancy digital SLR.

Man, I'd BEG for that disease. No diagnosis required, and the BENEFITS.

It sounds like you've got a good thing going and, frankly, like somebody I'd be proud to work with.

Not that that means squat to your life, but I enjoyed reading your post. It reassured me of the world's goodness, and that not everybody needs a self-diagnosed mental illness as a crutch for times when life gets hard. (Recognizing that there are doctors who fail to diagnose valid mental illnesses as well due to their own faults.)

Re:I resemble that remark

[Rycross]

That seems rather presumptuous of you. Do you know Marxist Hacker? Because you're making a big assumption about him without pretty much any evidence.

You do realize that a disorder being over-diagnosed doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't exist, right?

Re:I resemble that remark

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I've got a good thing going NOW- but it took failing at being a civil servant to get here.

I've got some niggling little physical symptoms for my Asperger's as well- stimming to the point of rubbing holes in my skin and bleeding (sometimes without noticing); migraines (sun, violins, and vinegar salad dressing are three big triggers); disgraphia (ha, there's a reason to go into software engineering, where one can type rather than write!); spd (sensory perception disorder- aka halucinations).

I don't understand how anybody with Asperger's would be totally unable to work. Unable to keep a job more than three years in a row due to driving everybody else nuts, yes, but not totally unable to work.

Re:I resemble that remark

[Jurily]

You do realize that a disorder being over-diagnosed doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't exist, right?

You should only diagnose disorders you can treat without drugging them. The rest is just life.

Meanwhile, marijuana is illegal because it makes you smile.

Re:I resemble that remark

[Marxist Hacker 42]

And the frustration level from that is immense- especially when by law and physical proximity, most of the people who will do economic harm to your life you will never meet, let alone have a chance to take a shot at.

Re:I resemble that remark

[cthulu_mt]

I'm so lucky to be in a company now that respects my talents, and allows me time to deal with my mental illnesses; but not everybody is that lucky.

I imagine they could save a bunch of money by hiring someone with a spine.

Re:I resemble that remark

[Rycross]

You should only diagnose disorders you can treat without drugging them. The rest is just life.

That's assuming that there are no mental disorders that require chemical treatment. That point of view isn't supported by the medical evidence out there. Someone with schizophrenia isn't going to get better by just dealing with it, and any serious doctor would laugh at the idea that its "just life."

Meanwhile, marijuana is illegal because it makes you smile.

So smoking a blunt to feel happy is OK, but taking a pill to help you through a rough patch is a sign of weakness or a shirking of personal responsibility? Give me a break.

Re:I resemble that remark

[the_humeister]

Uh huh. So, as per your definition, depression, bipolar disorder, shcizophrenia, etc. are not real disorders. If I had any mod points left, I'd have modded you down.

Re:I resemble that remark

[gringofrijolero]

I doubt he does, and neither do the ones who modded him insightful. We know so little about ourselves and how our surroundings effect us. This is why the holy books tell us to judge not.

Re:I resemble that remark

[geekoid]

Someone has a medical issue, they go to the doctor for it and somehow who you think that's not taing responsibility?

Really? are you that stupid?

Mental disorders do exist.

Re:I resemble that remark

[Anonymous Coward]

That is not the correct usage of mod points...

Re:I resemble that remark

[rdavidson3]

A friend has a 6-year old boy with Asperger's as well and I never met a kid that smart in my life. He has noticeable ticks and habits, but the remarkable thing most people remember about him are his reading and writing are at a level I would believe at least 5 grades higher, and remembers everything. And what kind of kid at 6 can do math (multiple and divide 2 and 3 digit numbers) in his head without breaking a sweat; he's a walking calculator.

Amazing kid.

Re:I resemble that remark

[Chris Burke]

There we have it, boys and girls. "I didn't fuck up my life, the doctor told me so."

One great way for a person with a mental illness to fuck up their life is to ignore the very real negative effects it has on their lives.

If a friend of yours ever blames their PTSD (or whatever mental illness) for their last relationship ending badly, try considering the possibility that there are in fact factors outside their control and recommend they get counseling to help them. Or say what you just said, do more harm than good, and be a giant douchebag.

Re:I resemble that remark

[twidarkling]

Yes it is. It's called "Trolling" or "flamebait." Deliberately posting an unpopular or unsupported opinion for the purpose of pissing off people or causing them to waste time in refuting ... oooooohhh, I see what you did there.

Re:I resemble that remark

[JCSoRocks]

Huh, at least someone knows what they're for...

Re:I resemble that remark

[Culture20]

You should only diagnose disorders you can treat without drugging them. The rest is just life.

You posted in the wrong thread. The recent Scientology thread is here: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/26/2111214
BTW, don't visit France right now.

Re:I resemble that remark

[Anonymous Coward]

So true, and I was glad when the doctor told me so.

I have a physical condition that without treatment will kill me. It also messes with my brain chemistry. The mental condition was detected, diagnosed and treated first, then later the underlying cause was discovered and treated. Fortunately this allowed me to stop using the psychiatric medication I was on.

It also taught me a few things. How much changes to your brain chemistry can effect you, how real these disorders are and how effective the medication can be. If my condition could change how my mind works so drastically, why couldn't similar imbalances exist for other less life-threatening reasons?

I don't know what your issue is Jurily, but from your multiple posts its clear you have a very strong bias and aren't so interested in evidence or reason.

Re:I resemble that remark

[penguinstorm]

> but it took failing at being a civil servant to
> get here.

Failing as a civil servant is usually as good a sign as any that you're well qualified for private sector work.

Re:I resemble that remark

[Anonymous Coward]

Not all unpopular posts are trolls or flamebait. Using mod points to stifle them amounts to nothing more than censorship.

Re:I resemble that remark

[somersault]

Oh ffs I wish I had read this before ranting before, because you are just trolling. Seriously, go read up on OCD. The symptoms to it are so varied and seemingly random that I was amazed when one day someone pointed me to a list of OCD symptoms after hearing one weird thing I do, and basically all of the weird shit that I have done during my life that I had thought was just me being a freak, was actually all part of a well recognised problem.

Yes, it does make you feel better to know that you aren't the only person in the world that strange, but it is obvious that there are a lot of possible ways for your brain to screw up in its development whether chemically or psychologically, and without help a lot of people just self-destruct. It is good to get help for these things. You yourself seem like you need some help for all your attention seeking and attempts to somehow prove that everyone in the world should be able to be as awesome as you think you are.

Re:I resemble that remark

[gringofrijolero]

Now I know who you sound like... That Scientology guy who went on the TV and starting yelling and screaming about some chick who was using prescribed drugs for some psychological problems. Damned if I can remember any of their names..

Re:I resemble that remark

[ducomputergeek]

A good friend of mine was finally diagnosed as having Asperger, at least officially. Nice guy, fun to be around, but completely and utterly lacking in the ability to read body language. Now he got lucky in so far as he inherited enough from his grand father, and overseen by good trustees, that he can afford to live a comfortable middle class life without a real career. He did finish a bachelors and 2 masters degrees in writing and advertising, but trying to find and hold a job with a company in that field has been impossible for him. But he's tried the business world, teaching, and a number of other things only to have failed repeatedly or been exploited.

Which is a real shame, because he's great at things like copywriting. (Ad copy, not the IP stuff). Now the other problem is coming from a rural wealthy southern family where he was treated as the black sheep to be kept sorta locked up in attic because he was "special". I'm almost sure that his own family is where his self-esteem problems come from.

He's ended up going back and learning to bake, which is something else he's good at, with the goal to open his own bakery.

Re:I resemble that remark

[i_ate_god]

Yes it is. It's called "Trolling" or "flamebait." Deliberately posting an unpopular or unsupported opinion for the purpose of pissing off people or causing them to waste time in refuting ... oooooohhh, I see what you did there.

Actually, it's strongly suggested that instead of modding trolls down, you mod insightfuls and interestings and funnies up. You have a limited number of mod points, better to use them to drown out travesty by over exposing excellency.

Re:I resemble that remark

[couchslug]

"So smoking a blunt to feel happy is OK, but taking a pill to help you through a rough patch is a sign of weakness or a shirking of personal responsibility?"

Both those are disgusting weaknesses!
Solve your problems like a Real Man and get drunk.

Re:I resemble that remark

[Anonymous Coward]

well I"m glad we have people like you. after all, someone has to be the gutless servile eat-shit-and-smile worker. now the rest of us will go find employers who treat their employees fairly.

Re:I resemble that remark

[Locke2005]

It was Tom Cruise dissing Brooke Shields for taking meds for postpartum depresion. Fortunately, they should soon be coming out with some new Alheimers meds... if only they can figure out how to get you to remember to take them. Unfortunately. You won't be able to hide your own easter eggs anymore.

Re:I resemble that remark

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for the story of that kid. It frustrates me that the genius kid is labeled as having a disorder.

Someday I hope we geniuses - I mean misfits and nerds - can organize, take over the world, and re-define all of these moronic "disorders". So in my new world, if you're a "jock" in high school, you will be diagnosed with a series of disorders including physical over-aggressiveness and competitiveness, slow, learning disabled, etc. IQ has to be above 135-140 to be considered normal. Below that you have a disability and you dig ditches and live in FEMA trailers. No bitterness here! :)

Re:I resemble that remark

[footNipple]

> Failing as a civil servant is usually as good a sign as any that you're well qualified for private sector work.

From my experience hiring and firing 100's, it is most certainly the other way around.

Re:I resemble that remark

[zary]

I've noticed that a lot of people(not you, just in general) think that Aspbergers makes people stupid, but really it doesn't. I, for one, am more on the side that Aspbergers is a lot like being a Vulcan, because all of the people with Aspbergers that i know are much smarter than average, like me, but not so much as my 6th grade cousin who is taking Calculus at the local college.

Re:I resemble that remark

[Anonymous Coward]

~hug~

I have the same condition. last semester i let a girl use me because i couldn't get through my classes any other way. i still failed one. (in b4 'failtards dont belong at collage' from kneejerk morons)

i agree, aspergers is a silent disability that leads to bitterness. if i was missing my thumbs it would be obvious to everyone but before i was diagnosed i thought it was just me failing because apparently i had some reason to not want to live up to my potential.

anyway. marxist hacker. i've always seen your posts to be well-reasoned and articulate. also i like your screenname b/c i'm also a marxist hacker ^____^

Re:I resemble that remark

[Anonymous Coward]

vinegar salad dressing

dude, if _I_ got a migrane every time I found some vinaigrette on my salad, man. i don't know what i'd do. i'd probably kill myself.

how can you survive like that??? you are an inspiration to us all.

Re:I resemble that remark

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, marijuana is illegal because it makes you smile.

It doesn't make me smile. It makes me want to track you down and tear your ignorant face off.

Re:I resemble that remark

[Anonymous Coward]

You let a girl "use" you so you could "couldn't get through my classes any other way"? What the hell are you talking about? She coerced you into having sex in exchange for tutoring you?

Re:I resemble that remark

[sy5t3m]

You should only diagnose disorders you can treat without drugging them.

The bad news is that we can't remove your brain tumor.
The absolutely brilliant news is that we've withdrawn the diagnosis. Officially, you have no tumor. Now quit whining and get on with life.

Re:I resemble that remark

[Jaysyn]

Wow, you're just a cruel, worthless little fuck aren't you?

Re:I resemble that remark

[Marxist Hacker 42]

That mirrors my situation- one set of posts on alt.religion.catholic of all things, and somebody suggested I go check out alt.support.autism. This led to better medication for my migraines and then based on the medication that worked for my migraines, a formal diagnosis and coping mechanism training.

30 years of being just weird, 9 years of knowing *why* I'm strange and learning how to deal with it better every day.

Re:I resemble that remark

[Marxist Hacker 42]

You need to join the Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical. Too bad it's just a joke.

Re:I resemble that remark

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I went into civil service in 2003 as a private contractor- was hired in 2006- was fired in 2007 for not understanding the difference between public and private use of computer equipment.

I'm MUCH better now in a company that understands my needs.

Re:I resemble that remark

[Marxist Hacker 42]

How about- don't eat the salad? Actually, after many moons, I've found avoiding certain behaviors, combined with medication, have reduced my migraines down to only 2-3 a month.

Re:I resemble that remark

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I imagine they could save a bunch of money by hiring someone with a spine.
 
My last employer, I went to the Union and got them to join in an ADA lawsuit against the state that resulted in me getting four months back pay for the time I was unemployed. Enough of a spine for you?

Re:I resemble that remark

[Marxist Hacker 42]

That's what people said about me growing up. Usually took 2-4 years of somebody knowing me well for the ticks and habits to get on their nerves to the point of causing a problem.

I wasn't diagnosed until I was 30.

I agree with John Guilt's advice below, and would add one thing- find his obsession and if it could be of use to somebody, anybody, in the real world, encourage the hell out of it. It has been my experience that Asperger's syndrome people are given one great gift in life, and if they can make money with it, that's a by-product that will enable them to also be economically independent, if not rich. Of course, they'll do it because it is their obsession, not because they make money with it- some of my most useful software projects I never made a dime on.

Re:I resemble that remark

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Mine was more from school.

I'll bet he ends up an excellent baker- and with writing his own ad copy, he'd probably do quite well at farmer's markets for selling his wares.

Re:I resemble that remark

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Yes, I've heard that theory before. It usually goes right along with the idea that Asperger's is an evolutionary step towards engineering instead of agriculture or finance being the primary economic provider. That and the diagnosis itself being a feminist conspiracy to eliminate male behavior with drugs.

While these three linked theories do have a certain amount of merit, I'm not willing to call any of them the absolute truth.

Re:I resemble that remark

[EvilBudMan]

--A lot of my paranoia is related to this as well.---

It's not paranoia if what you say is well founded. I think you just made a case that I can back you up on that. I don't know if I have Asperger's because I have never been test but wanting to have a real career without exploitation is something I really want. There are lots of people labeled mentally ill that just can't stand the status qua of working like a serf.

Re:I resemble that remark

[Marxist Hacker 42]

My problem is that I keep allowing my past experiences to color my current experiences- which means even when I'm in a good situation I have a tendency to do something to screw it up. And since I don't know I'm doing it, when I'm in that situation, I have a tendency to get paranoid.

A good example was when I was being fired from my government job for misuse of public property- I got to the point that I actually wrote a small program to disconnect my computer from the internet when I was logged in, because they were calling every help request in Visual Studio a "hit on a website" when I wasn't supposed to be browsing the web, and sticking in a music CD to listen to at work resulted in 10 hits to filesharing sites by Windows Media Player.

It was MY fault for using my work computer for personal use, it was my disability's fault for me not understanding my management's definition of "personal use" and taking more than a week to figure it out.

Blaming management for doing their jobs was paranoia- even if eventually a court backed me up on it.

Re:I resemble that remark

[cthulu_mt]

Do you have your union lawyer on speed dial incase you start menstruating?

Re:I resemble that remark

[Marxist Hacker 42]

What should I have done instead? Assassinate the governor who ordered them to "take care of" my inadvertent leak to the media?

Re:I resemble that remark

[cthulu_mt]

Violence has solved more problems in the course of human history than any other method.

Bitterness is a mental illness

[Daimanta]

I have fought for the classification of bitterness into the mental illnesses several decades ago but people laughed at me. Still bitter about it.

Re:Bitterness is a mental illness

[Jurily]

I have fought for the classification of bitterness into the mental illnesses several decades ago but people laughed at me. Still bitter about it.

You may still have a chance. Proposing this is obviously a sign of mental illness.

Re:Bitterness is a mental illness

[Locke2005]

They all laughed at me when I said I wanted to become a comedian... but nobody is laughing now!

Re:Bitterness is a mental illness

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no... This leads to a problem. I am bitter because you finally have your mental illness classified. But this means I am bitter myself, so I too have my mental illness classified. Ergo I cannot be bitter anymore. But then I *am* bitter again. And so on ad infinitum. Is there a Obsessive Switching Between Having A Disorder And Not Having A Disorder -disorder ? Well there *ought* to be !

Re:Bitterness is a mental illness

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear self-deprecation is the funniest type of humour ... but I'm no good at it.

Solution to the problem

[Nickodeemus]

Grow up. Life is harsh and you need to grow up and understand that things aren't always going to go your way. Learn to deal with it like an adult and move on.

Re:Solution to the problem

[Millennium]

Exactly. I understand that classifying states of mind such as these can be useful, but this is not an illness by any sane stretch of the imagination. Not every state other than blissful, meditative obedience is an illness; many, in fact, are quite healthy reactions to the normal disappointments and unpleasantnesses that creep into our lives from time to time.

Re:Solution to the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds to me as if you're advocating passivity.

Re:Solution to the problem

[palegray.net]

Sounds better than chemically-induced passivity, which is what these doctors seem to be advocating.

Re:Solution to the problem

[Nickodeemus]

I can see how it could be interpreted that way but this:

"deal with it like an adult"

is more about doing the appropriate thing for the situation than it is about walking away from whatever the issue[s] are.

Re:Solution to the problem

[Marxist Hacker 42]

A real adult takes out his frustration with a bottle of whiskey and a rifle.

Re:Solution to the problem

[dcollins117]

Everyone has experienced depression and anxiety at some point in their lives, but not everyone has a clinical depressive or anxiety disorder. I've certainly experienced trauma and bitterness in my life, but don't have PTSD as a result of it. Some people do. If it means they can now get help as a result of this classification (meaning it is more likely to be covered by their medical insurance), well, it's no skin off your back, is it?

Re:Solution to the problem

[Duradin]

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=864

Being in a blissful, meditative obedient state is a mental illness.

Re:Solution to the problem

[geekoid]

Except it's not always that simple.

Sure most people need that, but try to remember that the brain is essentially a chmical machine. An inbalance causes real mental issues.
It's on thing to hang onto the bitterness of the data that stood you up 5 years ago, it's another to always be bitter about everything no matter what you try.

Obviously more study needs t go on here, but it is not a matter of all mental disorders are BS.

Re:Solution to the problem

[castorvx]

I've experienced a sense of extreme bitterness in my life. That feeling is very much accompanied by a sense of helplessness. Some recover and some do not recover.

It is, however, disingenuous to suggest that some people are just being whiny. Don't fool yourself. These people aren't happy being this way. They are miserable. They're probably depressed. Severely depressed. If you have ever been truly depressed you know these feelings well. They can ruin your life if you don't get help.

Being overly bitter is indicative of something. That person believes beyond a shadow of a doubt that they got screwed on the dice roll in life. If classifying extreme bitterness helps medical professionals make better decisions in how to help people in that situation, I applaud it.

Re:Solution to the problem

[twidarkling]

And what's the appropriate thing when you absolutely cannot stop being bitter over the tinyest things? People read articles like this and go "bah, stupid sounding. They should just deal with the problem."

But then they don't realize the difference between "layperson" and "clinical" definitions of the disorder. It's not about just being a little upset at something that's not gone your way, it's a life-consuming issue. That's when it becomes clinical.

Re:Solution to the problem

[compro01]

many, in fact, are quite healthy reactions to the normal disappointments and unpleasantnesses that creep into our lives from time to time.

Yes, but you when get locked in that state long after the original cause has passed (e.g. still being bitter about something that happened 20 years ago), it is likely to be a problem.

Think of it like an Alderson loop. The majority of people stay in the loop for awhile, but are able to exit the loop and continue on, but some get stuck in that state indefinitely and need help (ranging from a friend to talk it over with to professional counselling to medication, depending on the particulars) to break out of it.

Re:Solution to the problem

[morgan_greywolf]

Being overly bitter is indicative of something.

Maybe a symptom of a greater disorder, perhaps? Depression? A personality disorder, perhaps?

I don't think excessive bitterness is, in and of itself, classifiable as a disorder. It is merely one symptom of a greater problem. BTW--how did you change the font like that?

Re:Solution to the problem

[Rob the Bold]

You might not have meant it this way, but "deal with it like an adult" comes off as condescending, assuming you're talking to an adult, or insensitive, if you're talking to someone with a disabling mental disorder. I would suggest that any grown-up who could "deal with it like an adult", would already be doing so.

Re:Solution to the problem

[MrMista_B]

Y'know, that's a very childish statement. If someone gets cancer, do you tell them 'grow up, life is hard'? What if they lose their legs in an accidnet? Are shot?

Physical and mental illnesses, diseases, and wounds are things that should be treated, not ridiculed.

Re:Solution to the problem

[Artifakt]

Here's the real problem with telling sick people to just "Deal with it like an adult".
      I'm a Diabetic. Right now, I take only small amounts of oral meds, even though I occasionally have some processed sugar in my diet. That's because over about three years, I lost 20 pounds and built 25 back into muscle, starting at age 50 to get off insulin and lead a more normal life. I'm currently healthy as a horse (2 mile runs at least 3 times a week, LONG runs on weekends, bench 255, takes about 45 minutes continuously on a stairmaster just to get my heart up to what is technically it's calculated training rate, and five minutes later it will be back down to 68 BPM).
      When I was typical slashdot poster age, I was in the Army. I went from being a sedentary oscilloscope jockey on entry to scoring over 400 on the Army Physical Fitness Test extended scale in, again, about 3 years. In training, I ran against and frequently matched a soldier who had been awarded the Silver in Barcelona the year before. So, I can actually claim to have been in near Olympic condition. (please note the near). At some points I did long range recon, with 55 pound standard load, plus because I was the biggest guy in my squad I also carried an M-60, spare barrel assembly and four or so belts of ammo on what sometimes turned into 70-80 mile hikes in rough country (average altitude was over 11 thousand feet for some of these little expeditions).
      'Beating' Diabetes fifteen years after that was harder. Until I got to the point where I could come off the insulin itself, the pain from exercise was constant, at a level that would have broken me back in my twenties. The zone between not enough exercise to improve and too much to heal up from becomes incredibly narrow when your sugar is that high. it's a target you just can't hit consistently. It took weeks to heal from some little training slips that would typically be ignored the next day in a young healthy person, and there were stages where the inflammation effects from exercising under the medications triggered (fortunately temporary) symptoms resembling advanced MS. After six months, I came off the insulin, and soon after it got to be just as rough as it is for any 50 year old man to build 25 pounds of muscle.
        I had a lot of people tell me it was just a matter of willpower, of manning up and being an adult. Yes it is. Any average person, who has merely approximately the will normally needed to become an Olympic level athlete, can do it.
        That's why it comes off as condescending. If you're a highly decorated combat infantryman, or an Olympian... If you made it through the original Mercury program... If you are one of the ten greatest living concert pianists or even just an Iron Chef, or merely use your Pulitzers to hold up the shelf for your Nobel, by all means, tell me it just took a little willpower or doing what a typical adult would and should do. From that exalted viewpoint, you may mean it well. If you don't have credentials such as those, anything you say about maturity, willpower, or dedication is hypocritical at best.
        Now maybe some of these people with the mental disorders really do have no real idea how much they just have to reach down into themselves and find the energy to continue, over and over, but maybe they've fought a battle every single damned day that makes my whole life look like a lazy river ride.
       

Re:Solution to the problem

[RancidPeanutOil]

Seriously though, people who !=bitter don't expect things not to go their way - they just don't have traumatic reactions to fail states. They don't tell others to grow up, because other's actions are not perceived to directly influence their lives - dealing with things like an adult means not reacting to this kind of news with a post as violently bitter as yours, and I mean no offense, but you'll probably take offense anyway. Your response is not characteristic of a healthy adult affect. Many of us do that, many of my comments are bitter and snarky - but we're both wrong, and both suffering from this illness where we feel justified telling others to "grow up." That is why we post on slashdot, I would presume. Non-bitter folks don't assume things arent going to go their way - they just aren't affected by it, and they quickly forget past failures, and then cognitive dissonance kicks in and they remember everything as though it DID go their way, but that attitude doesn't lead to expectations that things will go their way in the future.

So basically, non-bitter people have no expectations, learn nothing from the past, and actively forget how things actually happen. I totally feel better about their success now.

Re:Solution to the problem

[Saint Fnordius]

Are you mad? That's a horrible way to treat whiskey! It should be sipped, not shot at!

Re:Solution to the problem

[beegeegee]

I don't appear to have modding capability but if I did I'd give it all to you for the most intelligent and thoughtful post I've ever read on SlashDot.
Of course, I don't really come here for intelligence and thought. I come mostly for the jokes like everyone else but I feel privileged to find someone with real life experience, willing to share it. I actually wish I could cut and paste the whole thing into the Bugzilla "thoughts" db on our local bug tracker server. Unfortunately, it would break the server which would be another bug. Sort of like the Little Rascals episode about the fire at the fire station. But I digress.
Thanks for the post.

Re:Solution to the problem

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Sip the whiskey. Shoot the bankers.

Re:Solution to the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

"Chemically-induced passivity" eh? Have you ever been depressed? I don't mean, "man, I should have gotten that promotion, this stinks" depression, I mean honest-to goodness clinical depression, lasts for months-no-YEARS, no-appetite, no-sleep, empty sucking pit in your soul, no-fucking-joy in anything, I'd kill myself to end the pain but I just can't find the energy Depression? Has anyone in your family? Or your friends?

Properly treating depression with anti-depressants and appropriate therapy is not "chemically-induced passivity." Nor is properly treated bipolar disorder, or anxiety, or schizophrenia. This medications, if used properly, can give you your life back.

Anyone who thinks this is meant to make people "happy little drones" or whatever, they've never had to actually deal with a mental illness. You have no idea. A mental illness that requires treatment is by it's very nature, something that keeps you from properly reacting to the stressors and pressures of life, they cause self-reinforcing mal-adaptive behaviors, and because it's your brain that's doing it to you, it's damned hard to fix without some sort of external stimuli.

These are not people who grump and grumble at morning people, these are people who are so angry and untrusting, it sabotages their ability to interact reasonably. They hate mindlessly. They cannot "move on" with their lives. The stress or shock to their system "broke" them in some subtle but fundamental way.

And if giving them the same treatment as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (which I bet some of you can still remember being mocked roundly when it first came to prominence) can break them out of that mindless cycle of hate and self destruction and help them LIVE again, well, by all means, DO it.

I guess at...

[Anonymous Coward]

... least 99.999% of slashdot must be bitter because they are without girlfriends.

Hmm, on that note..

[rotide]

I play a few too many video games than I probably should, when will that be a diagnosable mental illness?

How about my girlfriend who likes TV and Facebook a bit more than the average person? I mean, that's gotta be a new mental illness. Probably easily treatable with a $300 bottle of pills from the big pharma's right?

Re:Hmm, on that note..

[aereinha]

Eventually being anything other than 'normal' will be a disease. But what is normal? Shame

Re:Hmm, on that note..

[nizo]

...my girlfriend who likes TV and Facebook a bit more than the average person?

I dunno, have you met the average person? TV and Facebook are way better than those poor sods.

Re:Hmm, on that note..

[speedtux]

Probably easily treatable with a $300 bottle of pills from the big pharma's right?

That's the US solution. The European solution is six weeks in a health spa, courtesy of public health insurance. I suspect that the European solution works better and costs less in the long run...

Re:Hmm, on that note..

[morgan_greywolf]

I play a few too many video games than I probably should, when will that be a diagnosable mental illness?

It already is.

How about my girlfriend who likes TV and Facebook a bit more than the average person?

Yep. And yep.

Probably easily treatable with a $300 bottle of pills from the big pharma's right?.

Actually, the answer is no. Addiction disorders are treated primarily with therapy and 12-step programs. There are often other, related and usually contributing disorders, such as depression and anxiety, that are treated with pills from big pharma. But they're not necessarily $300 a bottle.

(Full disclosure: my wife is a psychologist and addictions counselor)

Re:Hmm, on that note..

[geekoid]

Are you really that stupid? You don't think there is a know underling reason for this? that the chemicals in your brain effect your personality? That they can be detrimental? that this is about people who are bitter at everything all the time to there own determent?

And stop using the term Big Pharma. What it implies that you are ignorant AND stupid.

Re:Hmm, on that note..

[geekoid]

For really mental illness, not the health spa wont work. It's a chemical imbalance. If a health spa does work, then no you're not suffering from any long term psychiatric mental illness. Sure, it may help for grief or other unexpected immediately traumatic event, but even then they should be under the care of a Psychiatrist. Someone trained in the function of the brain.

Re:Hmm, on that note..

[ebuck]

Mental diseases are not like bacterial infections. With a bacterial infection, the disease is present if the organism is present. With a mental disease, the disease is present if it impacts your life so greatly that you cannot function in society.

I've known some people who were unreasonably bitter about things that were truthfully not their fault. My friend can rant and rave for hours about a story that really changed his life. It turns out that decades ago he worked for a company, and they detected a leak of confidential information to a competitor. The person assigned to investigate turned out to be the person leaking the information, something my friend didn't find out until twenty years after the fact. The investigator was primarily interested in finding someone else to take the blame, and what resulted was a truly unfair scenario. Yes, my friend is bitter about it, and if you get him started on that topic, be prepared for him to not stop for about four hours. No, he can't do much about it, as he only found out after the statue of limitations had expired.

He is only very bitter about it now, but I imagine that soon after the incident, he might have been so bitter as to be unemployable. That's probably grounds for calling it a debilitating disorder. Then again, perhaps he never was incapacitated in any meaningful way other than losing that job. If so, then perhaps it's just a life experience.

Psychology describes diseases on how they present, but they are not diseases until they are debilitating. Everyone is a little bitter, a little paranoid, a little egocentric, a little manic, and a little depressed from time to time. When you are so beholden to those emotions that you can't hold a job, sustain yourself, or interact with others, then it's a disease.

Re:Hmm, on that note..

[Altus]

there are plenty of short term mental illnesses that require treatment to get better. Sometimes they can be treated without chemicals (like the spa, or behavior therapy). Just because they are correctable instead of just treatable doesn't mean they aren't mental illnesses.

Re:Hmm, on that note..

[metacell]

I live in Sweden. No health spas on the public health insurance here. But MDs do prescribe time off work, courtesy of the social security system.

Re:Hmm, on that note..

[Saint Fnordius]

Um, it's a little facetious to discount the body's own ability to regenerate even neural disorders. Often a spa works not directly, but in helping the brain and the associated hormones, neurotransmitters and so on "kick-start" themselves back into repairing the damage.

Sometimes the big pharma pills are just the same thing: a nudge in the right direction, with the hefty price tag due to all the work needed to give an effect without too many side effects.

Re:Hmm, on that note..

[sy5t3m]

Which european countries would this be?
From personal experience, it can't be the UK.

Obsessive Classificatory Disease?

[cptnapalm]

These people who seem to need to classify every single possible emotional state as an illness have some serious mental issues.

Re:Obsessive Classificatory Disease?

[zary]

Sounds like somebody has a bad case of Paranoia...

Humor in the summary?

[nine-times]

I'm wondering about this:

Of course this has some people who live perfect little lives, and always get what they want, questioning the new classification. The so called "disorder"...

Is this supposed to be funny, or is the submitter suffering from some embitterment himself?

I know some people love having their personality labelled as a "disorder" because they believe it then excuses their actions. But also having a label like this can help people cope. Having a label can help you wrap your head around your own thoughts and behaviors, make you feel like you're not uniquely screwed up and alone, and figure out what steps might help you improve.

Re:Humor in the summary?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good job finding the humor, smarty.

Re:Humor in the summary?

[the_humeister]

I'm wondering about this:

Is this supposed to be funny, or is the submitter suffering from some embitterment himself?

I know some people love having their personality labelled as a "disorder" because they believe it then excuses their actions.

You know, that's a philosophical question that's been plaguing us for eons. When we get down to it, physics determines all of our actions. Our decisions and actions are all a result of physical phenomena.

Re:Humor in the summary?

[nine-times]

When we get down to it, physics determines all of our actions. Our decisions and actions are all a result of physical phenomena.

You may be right on a certain level, but that explanation fails to help us.

I mean, fine, all my actions are the result of physics. Now what? What kind of job should I get? What kind of society should I form? Even a simple question like, should I eat cereal for breakfast, or just skip it and drink a cup of coffee? Saying that my choice in each case will be caused by physical reactions doesn't help me make any of those decisions.

Ideas matter, too, and they do have an effect on what decisions we make. If you didn't believe that, then you wouldn't be pushing the idea that physics determines our actions.

Re:Humor in the summary?

[geekoid]

Generally speaking, In my experience the first set of people don't have the disorder. . and the second have it and are glad for having a way to cope with it.

Re:Humor in the summary?

[4D6963]

Does it include (non-deterministic) quantum physics?

Re:Humor in the summary?

[4D6963]

You may be right on a certain level, but that explanation fails to help us.

Indeed, it's pointless because everything is "just physics". Your computer is just physics but that won't tell you how to do what you want to do with it, and so on.

People keep devaluating things all the time by looking at them at too low a level, for example "our brains are just chemistry", "we are just a bunch of carbonated molecules", but that's irrelevant. For example, musical in digital form is just a bunch of values that describe a sound wave, which themselves are just a bunch of 0 and 1's, which themselves are just holes burnt in a layer of material, which itself is just a bunch of molecules, which themselves are just a bunch of atoms, but none of that, be it looking at the raw wave values or looking at the atoms that make up the CD will tell you anything about the difference between some Celine Dion music or some Beethoven. Because that's just looking at things at the wrong level. In the case of music for example, we process it at a much higher level than just sound waves, we analyse it, break it down, have it make connections with memories and emotions, provoke thoughts, and so on... The same goes with our meatbag bodies, or our chemical network brain, or pixelated virtual realities.

Not to mention that nothing proves our brains are purely deterministic (i.e. some quantum physics may be involved).

Re:Humor in the summary?

[nine-times]

Yeah, I just don't think it matters if it's deterministic. Even disregarding the vagueness that quantum mechanics brings to the determinism question, thinking about our behavior in terms of physical/chemical reactions doesn't really help us make decisions.

Almost whenever you hear someone say, "[X] is just [Y]," they're almost always oversimplifying and disregarding noteworthy complexity in order to be glib. Our actions may be the result of pre-determined physical reactions in some sense, but it's not "just" the result of pre-determined physical reactions.

Re:Humor in the summary?

[4D6963]

True, even if it's all deterministic, our tought processes and such are so complex that it's about as relevant as the difference between pseudo-random number generators and entropy pool-based random number generators, in the end they're still indistinguishably random looking, determinism or not.

Re:Humor in the summary?

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting anonymously, for obvious reasons:

I suspect that I have a -- hopefully mild -- case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, though I've never gone through the trouble of getting a formal diagnosis. The primary value in believing this about myself is that it keeps me on the lookout for certain thought patterns and behaviors that do me no good whatsoever.

I don't tell people about my suspicions, or ask them for special treatment because of it. I just try to think beyond my initial instincts.

Re:Humor in the summary?

[Artifakt]

It really can't all be deterministic. It's a bit of a stretch to say quantum mechanics is what it would take to make it non-deterministic. Roger Penrose made a fair argument that QM played a part, but there are some pretty good arguments why he was wrong. Anyway, Chaos theory is enough to prove mental activity isn't deterministic by itself, for we can be confident that the brain itself follows Chaos theory models before we even worry about whether the mind does. When you already have proven non-determinism rules at the purely physical layer, arguing about the existence or nature of the possible non-physical layer(s) and whether non-determinism is possible there as well seems like overkill.

Re:Humor in the summary?

[Anonymous Coward]

But also having a label like this can help people cope. Having a label can help you wrap your head around your own thoughts and behaviors, make you feel like you're not uniquely screwed up and alone, and figure out what steps might help you improve.

Just classify it as being human and having emotions. We all have the same emotions: happiness, sadness, depression, fear. We have all experienced them (not to the same extent as some, but still, felt them at least once). The disorder that you suffer from is: having emotions. You can't prevent them, because everyone has them (believe it or not), but you can change which one you feel, and how intense depending on how you think about the problem.

bah

[grub]

"They feel the world has treated them unfairly.

I don't think the world has treated me unfairly, I just happen to share it with 6 billion fucking cunts I can't stand.
What's wrong with that?

.

Re:bah

[SBFCOblivion]

Ha, well put.

Re:bah

[Erikderzweite]

Nothing, but you have to keep in mind that this feeling is mutual.

Re:bah

[Anonymous Coward]

Has the population doubled? By my calculations there are 3 billion or so fucking cunts... Wait are you counting some animal species or what?

Re:bah

[Anonymous Coward]

You sure you don't mean 5,999,999,999 fucking cunts?

Re:bah

[Anonymous Coward]

It's actually closer to 3 billion fucking cunts... Well, 3 billion cunts, fucking, heck, maybe at some point in time. And probably not with you. A good reason to be bitter I guess.

There's a recession going on, people.

[taustin]

And psychiatrists have boat payments to make, dammit!

At the rate things are going, this will soon become so serious that it can only be treated with a brand new, expensive drug just invented. It's a derivative of the drug they use for Restless Leg Syndrome, only it costs a lot more.

Re:There's a recession going on, people.

[JCSoRocks]

They're also offering drugs to help you with that other pesky disorder you've got called Unemployment. Increasingly common, Unemployment is said to be associated with depression, lethargy, weight loss and poor appearance. See your doctor today about the new medications available to treat your Unemployment.

Re:There's a recession going on, people.

[Anonymous Coward]

If Unemployment is a disorder, then Bob Black's an anti-psychiatrist.

FUCK YOU

[Anonymous Coward]

um, fuck you.

Post Traumatic WTF

[zoomshorts]

Great numbers of people came through world war I and II and Korea
There is NO such imaginary ailment. The modern PYCHOBABBLE mindset
seems to resonate amoung fucking idiots who do not want to take
responsibility for their actions, and grasp the pseudo-science of
Psychology to bolster their inability to be real people.

These people fail to adapt. They should DIE. Failing that, leave me and
the others like me , free from supporting these pussies for the rest of
their lives.

Maybe I will suffer some post 'traumatic' distress that makes me track
these assholes down and put them out of MY misery. They better hope they
are not taken seriously, or I will take myself seriously.

Re:Post Traumatic WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

A little bitter, eh?

Re:Post Traumatic WTF

[ebuck]

Never hear of shell shock, eh?

We don't talk about mechanical stress being so unreal that broken bones are just character flaws. Why assume the nervous system is so perfect that no experience could cause it to fail or malfunction? Why assume that the mental system is so perfect that no experience could cause it to fail or malfunction?

Mechanical stress breaks bones. Nervous system stress can cause arrhythmias and tachycardia. Mental system stress can cause inability to perform.

I would tell you more, but I'm not the expert. Instead, walk through those doors and talk to someone who knows much more about it than I do, "Cthulhu, next!"

Re:Post Traumatic WTF

[sy5t3m]

Psychosomatic heart disease in american civil war soldiers? Preposterous!
Post traumatic stress in the 1800's? Not on your nelly!

Your statement that people suffering from PTSD should die however does have some historical precident. You'd have been great at executing "cowards" and "traitors"
I would work on your idea of modern though.

I wonder...

[yerktoader]

So I guess this means that emo isn't whiny, post-pseudointellectual narcissism? Man, Fall Out Boy is going to have a field day with this...

This confirms it

[Locke2005]

All ex-wives and ex-husbands really are mentally ill!

Re:This confirms it

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? I didn't see anything about my ex on Netcraft...

That one more pill is today! ;)

[Snowtide]

Check out Sarcasma, a sarcastic take on just that question. :) http://www.sarcasma.net/sarcasma_002.htm

It's a trick!

[gringofrijolero]

It just makes it easier, and more convenient to have people locked up in the rubber room. Hate the IRS? You're just bitter. We have "treatment" for that now. A little "reeducation" oughta fix you right up. Gettin' close to that Twilight Zone where everybody had to think happy thoughts, or the kid would turn you into a jack-in-the-box.

I submit

[ArsonSmith]

I submit "Compulsive Classification" as a mental disorder, but everybody thinks I'm paranoid. I have proof.

explotation and all that

[speedtux]

This would explain a lot of the "delusions of inadequacy" side of my personality. I work so hard at some stuff that I'm just incapable of, like having a real career where I'm not exploited.

Look around you in the world; do you seriously think everybody but you lives perfect, happy, well-adjusted lives? Paris Hilton? Cher? Donald Trump? Ted Haggard? Bill Gates? President Obama?

Everybody has problems. Everybody gets exploited by someone sometimes. Everybody has hangups and issues. Everybody has disappointments, in people, in things, and in themselves. Everybody is paranoid about something sometimes. It's part of the human condition. Get used to it and deal with it positively.

Re:explotation and all that

[Culture20]

Get used to it and deal with it positively.

Aha, but he _can't_ get used to it, no matter how hard he tries. That's when a doctor starts saying, "Hmm, maybe this is a real problem."

Re:explotation and all that

[twidarkling]

Get used to it and deal with it positively.

This is why mental disorders have a stigma.

Read it again. He *IS* dealing with it, and positively. And it's not just being "paranoid about something sometimes." It's about it being a long-term thing that keeps going, with enough severity to affect your life. There's a history of mental history on my mom's side of the family, and while I firmly believe that my mother's full of shit when she claims she has issues, my uncle suffered from panic attacks that literally left him cowering in a corner. It took a fairly strict meds schedule to improve his situation, since he had a chemical imbalance, where his brain simply didn't make enough of a certain chemical.

Re:explotation and all that

[speedtux]

Aha, but he _can't_ get used to it, no matter how hard he tries. That's when a doctor starts saying, "Hmm, maybe this is a real problem."

If my bank account is empty, that's a real problem, and its not something that one starts overlooking at some point. But it's not a problem that a doctor can help with.

Re:explotation and all that

[speedtux]

It's about it being a long-term thing that keeps going, with enough severity to affect your life.

It's only a mental disorder if it is not normal to be unhappy in his circumstances. Even long term unhappiness is not a disorder if there are good reasons for it.

The guy was diagnosed with Asperger's; that's his medical problem. That this causes him problems that make him unhappy is not a medical problem, it's an expected and normal consequence. He hasn't been diagnosed with depression, paranoia, or anything other mental disorder.

His doctor can give him a pill that will make him happy and not worry, but that's not a good thing, because unhappiness serves a purpose, namely to get people to change their circumstances. People with Asperger's have a good shot at being happy, just like everybody else, but just like everybody else, there are no guarantees.

Re:explotation and all that

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Does everybody else deal with their paranoia by using Google Earth to scout good places to set up a sniper nest to shoot at random into skyscrapers?

Not that I've ever given into my mental illness to that extent, but it is something that crossed my mind as a way to get some revenge and exit the normal economy at the same time.

Thoughts of my wife and son kept me from doing it- me going to jail would harm them. But that's *NORMAL* thinking for the paranoia side of my mental illness, and I can easily see somebody with my mental illness becoming a terrorist- and one who isn't stupid enough to get caught by having all of the sniper deaths in a single jurisdiction.

Re:explotation and all that

[Marxist Hacker 42]

There are a lot fewer guarantees with being happy if you can't get out of your mind the insult some kid gave you on the bus 30 years ago.

That's Asperger's. Or rather, it's one of my symptoms of Asperger's. The depression and paranoia are sub symptoms of the disorder- along with the stimming, migraines, disgraphia, inability to understand body language, inability to have empathy for other people, inability to understand when I should stop typing because I'm boring everybody to death....

Post-stupidity annoyd disorder?

[KreAture]

Basically, I am sure I have it because I am so annoyed all the time at all these doctors and their oddball patients.

It has gotten to the point where I am seeing most of the world as annoying.
- I am not bitter about it though.

New definitions...

[WinPimp2K]

Liberals who are not happy or content with their lives etc. are not bitter. You need to keep up with the times.

Bitter people are the ones who cling to their guns and religion - and if these folks are by definition mentally ill, then they can easily (in the legal sense) have their guns removed - for their own protection of course.

This "medical" definition of bitterness only applies if the religion being clung to is a Christian cult. If a person clings to a "religion" because their "holy man" promises them 72 virgins in paradise for bashing in a child's head with a rifle butt, or blowing themselves up in a crowded marketplace - well that person is not bitter or otherwise mentally ill.

Re:New definitions...

[Saint Fnordius]

I didn't know you were still so bitter about the last US federal election. My condolences... now get over it. Ahem.

On a more serious note, your post does reflect a textbook case of bitterness: obsessing about some slight that you can take no action on. It can develop into a feedback loop that eventually turns a person into a Unabomber or a Tim McViegh or an Osama bin Laden. Maybe that's the point you were trying to make through irony?

Re:New definitions...

[WinPimp2K]

Actually, I'm not bitter about the last US federal election - but having reached my current state of mind (somewhat curious observer) I do enjoy a bit of hyperbole mixed in with sarcastic cynicism. I was really aiming for "funny", but it wouldn't hold still long enough for me toget a good shot.

Unlike the folks who believe Bush/Obama (take your pick) is the worst thing to happen to the country since the Brits burned the White House in 1812, I feel an out-of-control Congress is the source of far more problems. Obama is no more going to control Congress than Bush did. Since I (like everyone else) can only affect 3 Congresscritters directly, I have adopted a simple approach:

Buy popcorn
Enjoy the show or go play WoW (better drama from the whiners in WSG than from Ways & Means)
Always vote against the incumbent - and that includes in primaries if they are opposed.

Re:New definitions...

[Saint Fnordius]

Ah, thank you. I suspected you were aiming for funny, but it's hard to parody something that is so absurd. I have seen comments like yours where the poster was deadly earnest.

Next time I have mod points, I plan on modding all political comments "funny". After all, that must be the intent, and it works better than calling it "flamebait". Cheers!

This really has to do with what a disorder is

[orkybash]

As I understand it (though I'm not a psychologist) a mental disorder is classified as such when it detrimentally affects the life of the person who suffers from it. So not all people who seem to be bitter a lot would necessarily have this, but if it causes them to start losing or cutting off friends, or impacts their decision making in a negative way, it would be classified as a disorder.

So it's no surprise that excessive bitterness can be a disorder. So can excessive happiness - ever heard of manics?

Re:This really has to do with what a disorder is

[Secret Rabbit]

By manics, I'm assuming that you mean people during a manic episode, yes? If so, that's not necessarily happy. It's really about the energy level of the person. And that can come not only in the form of happiness, but also rage and productivity among other things. But, assuming that someone does suffer from (euphoric) manias, that's Bipolar type I. So, already classified.

The good news is that it is easy to cure

[xednieht]

Instead of prescribing pills, doctors will prescribe bullets... bitterness all gone ;)

A quick patent search doesn't show anything but...

[number6x]

Who would like to bet that some big pharmaceutical company has a patented medication just for 'Bitterness'.

Of course they can't get the health insurance companies to pay for expensive prescriptions unless it is a mental disorder. Otherwise taking the medication would be an 'elective' treatment, not a medical requirement.

Yeah she nailed it

[Chris Burke]

"They feel the world has treated them unfairly. It's one step more complex than anger. They're angry plus helpless," says Dr. Michael Linden, the psychiatrist who put a name to how the world works.

Yep. I'm angry because I'm now classified as mentally ill, and I'm apparently helpless to prevent this expansion of mental illness diagnoses.

Ha ha, just kidding about the "now" part.

Be Well to you!

[erroneus]

I would just like to convey my sympathies to all those who have become embittered due to the traumatic stress of a world fraught with unfair competition, divisiveness, and discrimination. If you were born ugly and attractive people have more opportunities in life, that is no reason to be bitter. If you have been informed that you are somehow not good enough but not explained in what way, that is no reason to be bitter. If you are black in a predominantly white-controlled area and can't seem to get a fair chance in life, that is no reason to be bitter. If you are white and in a predominantly black-controlled area and can't seem to get a fair chance in life, that is no reason to be bitter.

There are many acceptable ways to respond to adversity in life so long as it is not angry or bitter in any way. If you happen to respond to such circumstances with anger and bitterness, fear not! We will not hold it against you, nor will we hold you responsible for it. We have declared that this is a mental illness and soon there will be treatments available for it. While the treatments will not elevate your social status in any way, you will be more accepting of "your place in life" so that your inner spirit will be more peaceful and docile. You will be better suited to serving those you had once resented for so long.

Re:Be Well to you!

[EvolutionsPeak]

I think I'll need some soma if I'm going to live in this Brave New World

Re:Be Well to you!

[SynthaxError]

+5 funny! Come on guy! This IS insightful

A new twist on Orwell

[Anonymous Coward]

So we'll have 'Thought Disease' instead of 'Thought Crime'? great...

Re:A new twist on Orwell

[Qzukk]

Don't give Them ideas, They are already quite certain that They have the power to quarantine you without due process.

Re:A new twist on Orwell

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only they think they can, they can:Bills about swine flu could be used to prohibit gatherings, most handy in case of economic collapse.

6 billion...

[WinPimp2K]

and not a one to give you any nookie?
yup that would tend to make one bitter.

Of course, your problem might also be related to poor eyesight. According to a statistic I saw somewhere on the internet, approximately half of the world's population would be dicks. With a small enough sample size you could have just hit a string of mis-identifications. Remember, in real life, the RNG does not have a "streak compensator" built in.

Re:6 billion...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Remember, in real life, the RNG does not have a "streak compensator" built in.

That should help actually - if they are streaking it makes it a lot easier to tell if they are cunts or dicks.

A gun makes more sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no bitterness that cannot be cured with a fully loaded 38 special. For the gun-ignorant, a 38 special is a popular revolver that can be purchased (illegally) in most "bad" neighborhoods in San Francisco.

I own 2 -- one for home use and one for the road. That road sometimes leads to my workplace.

Re:A gun makes more sense.

[ravenshrike]

*blinks* No, the 38 special is a medium powered .357 caliber bullet with the 38 referring to the cartridge diameter . It is a common revolver caliber but not a semi-auto caliber, which tend to be 9 mil or .45 in the U.S.

Re:A gun makes more sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting! You must have misread where he wrote: a 38 special is a popular revolver .

The key is "post-traumatic"

[Ohio Calvinist]

I think the difference is that this disorder speaks to an individual who remains bitter after a particular "traumatic" (at least to them) incident they can't get over, where there is a known cause, that can be treated, versus a generally bitter disposition.

This is a case where the diagnosis could lead a psychiatrist to apply methods to help the person cope with the traumatic event versus treating bitterness as an inherent personality trait. If an event alters the baseline, rather than just having a high-bitter baseline, there is a lot more that can be done to the stimulus or event causing it. There are people with a non-bitter disposition that would return to a non-bitter disposition should they be able to overcome/work-through/whatever that particular incident.

Once it's a disorder

[MBCook]

Remember folks: once it's a mental disorder, your therapist can charge your insurance to "fix" it to the tune of 1-2 hours per week, every week.

If it's a personality flaw, people have to pay for the therapy themselves.

This kind of stuff (bitterness, generic meanness, "depression" to the tune of "I'm not enthralled with life every moment") is a mental illness because insurance has to pay.

All I have to say is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck that.

Also: "major affective disorder, pleasant type"

[gilgongo]

In 1992, I saw this abstract in the Journal of Medical Ethics, now on-line for your delectation.

"In a review of the relevant literature it is shown that happiness is statistically abnormal, consists of a discrete cluster of symptoms, is associated with a range of cognitive abnormalities"

Hoo yah.

weeee

[dimovich]

Another reason why they should just legalize it...

All the listeners to right wing broadcasters?

[Old97]

It sounds like an attempt to diagnose these guys and what is left of the Republican party.

Re:All the listeners to right wing broadcasters?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody is a little conservative sometimes, but being an objectivist is actually a clinical disorder. Mild cases are treatable with extensive electroshock therapy, but the most severe cases always end in the objectivist trying to consume a gold brick while jamming a copy of Atlas Shrugged so far into his/her own colon that they die from it.

Re:All the listeners to right wing broadcasters?

[jd2112]

I sugguest that it be called Limbaugh's Syndrome.

SCO

[Tablizer]

So SCO indeed did make all slashdotters ill. Let's sue them!
     

Remember, being normal isn't normal

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember folks, you're not normal unless you have a mental disorder. If they haven't found your disorder yet, just give them time. Eventually they'll classify all feelings and emotions as disorders, and then we can be one big happy (but not too happy) dysfunctional family.

fucking great

[spidercoz]

the world is full of bastards and now I'M the mentally ill one

Re:fucking great

[alexborges]

Yummy yummy yummy go put some love in your tommy.

Lets get back to the sixties man. This new world order sucks.

Shrinks are quacks.

[uncoveror]

Shrinks are quacks, and have mad up so many mental disorders that everyone has two or three of them, and they can't wait to sell us snake oil pills. No one is normal, according to them.

Ren and Stimpy anyone?

[tekiegreg]

I still recall a Ren and Stimpy episode where Ren's got this happy helmet on that makes him nothing but happy and in the process drives himself nuts to break it. Can't help but think we're all heading there eventually. Nothing but happy helmets on our heads.

But cynicism I think keeps the world interesting and honest, let's not get rid of it completely, k guys?

*happy happy joy joy happy happy joy joy*

Re:A quick patent search doesn't show anything but

[caluml]

Who would like to bet that some big pharmaceutical company has a patented medication just for 'Bitterness'.

How about a spoonful of sugar?

Most Idiotic Statement I've Ever Seen on /.

[Anonymous Coward]

You should only diagnose disorders you can treat without drugging them. The rest is just life.

I wish I could mod this post -100 WTF?!?!?!. My grandmother suffered from mental illness (hospitalized many times) most of her life. Then a psychiatrist prescribed lithium and she was better. Your opinion is utterly groundless and utterly devoid of any merit whatsoever.

I'm incredibly lazy...

[Cormophyte]

...can I get some government cheddar and have my student loans forgiven by a court because I have a mental illness? That would be nice. Kthnx.

Good news for married men, disability benefits now

[echtertyp]

This could be good for married men all over America. Benefits and compensation :)

This is fail.

[Anonymous Coward]

So bitterness is deemed a mental illness, whilst homosexuality isn't.

Oh wut

I probably have it covered

[misanthrope101]

Misanthropy has an ICD code of 301.7. Even if there was a pill for it, I wouldn't bother to ask anyone for it. Maybe if you left it on the table and didn't talk to me or anything... but why would I want to get over who I am? What some call cynicism I call basic lucidity. Why would I want a pill to get rid of that?

His hands!

[OrangeTide]

His hands are made entirely of middle fingers. Now that's bitter.

Greed should too!

[prjt]

The only thing I can think of why they don't classify greed as a mental illness is because..... they are greedy.

All of us

[PineHall]

I believe we all are broken in different ways and thus we all have problems we have to deal with. The real question is "Is your problem extreme that you are in need of help so you can function relatively well in society?"

Re:All of us

[Anonymous Coward]

Does treatment have to be necessary for it to be beneficial? Is productivity always a better metric than quality of life?

I've read all the snarkey responses, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

you know? I can relate to the article.

I *am* bitter. I studied my ass off in college, got good grades, and have two engineering degrees. (and, a minor in CS since this is slashdot). I've worked hard at my jobs, I'm good at what I do, and I'm a good person.

However, I got fired two years ago because I found one of the executives embezzling from the company. I live in a smaller town (250,000 pop) that's doesn't have many (any?) extra $100k+ jobs. I look around and see the ignorant MBA types driving their new lexuses and getting big bonuses...and, fuck yeah, I'm bitter. I've applied for some $60k jobs, and am rejected by being overqualified. The FEW I could get an interview with said something like, "well, you'd leave us as soon as you got a higher paying job." I can't argue, they're right.

I'm not fatalistic about it, though. I'm not going to snap. BUT, I am angry. I'm bitter. I have dreams seeking revenge. This experience has challenged one of my basic beliefs that if you do good work and are a good person, karma will help you. I no longer believe that. I don't want to be a back-stabbing, lying asshole, but I sure would like the big house, new car, and plasma TV those folks seem to have.

So, rather than be smug & smarky that your life is perfect, be aware that some times bad things happen to good people, and those good people can have difficulty dealing with that. Not everyone has hit a big speedbump in life. Yet.

Re:I've read all the snarkey responses, but...

[Magada]

Speedbump? What are you speeding towards? Relax, tone down your CV if you want to work a lowly job or vote with your feet if you don't.

But what about Scotland?

[SimonInOz]

So what will they do about Scotland? It seems to be full of bitter, sad people. I didn't know it was a mental condition, I thought it was just how Scottish people were.

Mind you if I lived somewhere where it was cold wet and windy and they made me wear a skirt with nothing under it, I'd be bitter too.

And then there's the beer. Oh, and haggis ... and bagpipes ...

Re:But what about Scotland?

[alexborges]

Quarintine Scotland!

Mhm

Or legalize pot!

Re:But what about Scotland?

[BlindRobin]

The bitterness comes from six choobs ae spesh ahna bootle ae bucky but it aye gaes awa when englin looses at the fitbah.

Re:But what about Scotland?

[mrraven]

And Adam Smith who knows where that "invisible hand" has been?

Re:But what about Scotland?

[electrons_are_brave]

SIX choobs ae spesh an WAN bootle ae bucky? Bum.

Re:But what about Scotland?

[Anonymous Coward]

And then there's the beer. Oh, and haggis ... and bagpipes ...

... and short tempered, violent women! ... Wait, lassy, don't ... arrgh!
Oh, waily, waily.

Re:But what about Scotland?

[Palamos]

So what will they do about Scotland? It seems to be full of bitter, sad people. I didn't know it was a mental condition, I thought it was just how Scottish people were.

Mind you if I lived somewhere where it was cold wet and windy and they made me wear a skirt with nothing under it, I'd be bitter too.

And then there's the beer. Oh, and haggis ... and bagpipes ...

Now I'm not Scottish, and neither particularly like nor dislike the nation as a whole, the countryside is in parts very pleasant and in others decidedly not so. As a result, when I read your comments they just passed me by, except that is for your condemnation of the beer. Generally I would agree as the beers tend to be very second rate at best, but only last night I was introduced to a wonderful brew which happened to be Scottish through and through. It's name... Bitter and Twisted - now there's coincidence for you! Link below refers, well worth getting some in. http://www.beers-scotland.co.uk/product.asp?P_ID=137

Marriage ?

[anonymousNR]

I am not a psychologist but don't you think, people who marry have some kind of disorder otherwise why would they marry ? P.S : Gone nuts since my marriage.

Bush Derangement Syndrome

[dtmancom]

So all those people who for 8 years were terribly angry and bitter about our Commander in Chief... they officially had a mental problem?

Re:Bush Derangement Syndrome

[Artifakt]

Nice strawman. Go ahead and mod me.

Classification Redundant

[Anonymous Coward]

rather than calling it "post-traumatic embitterment disorder" they can just use the term that's been around since the late 1980's:

oi, wait for it...

wait for it...

Rush Limbaugh Listener

what? no LOLZ?

Bitterness needs a label to be a real illness

[KarmaOverDogma]

With advanced apologies to those out there who are suffering from PTSD....:

The A.P.A., after having held a deliberative emergency session, has decided to expound upon and give an official label to "bitterness" as a mental illness in much the same way that "shell shock" has been more appropriately renamed to Post Traumatic Stress Disoreder.

Bitterness shall henceforth be know as: Negative Experiential Perception of Reality Syndrome (NEPRS). It is best explained by the following image:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vinegar_Tasters

Well FUCK THEM

[alexborges]

And the horse they rode in on.

What the fuck are this guys talking about...

Next thing you know, the next Charlie Bukowski will end up in a mental prision or something

" I'm a surgeon, not a psychiatrist."

[Anonymous Coward]

Just as well. For some reason, I don't see Dr. McCoy making a lot of these diagnoses.

Like any industry? They require growth: How to do?

[Anonymous Coward]

Like any industry? They require growth: How to do that?

Well, simple: CREATE MORE CLIENTS!

(or @ least, potential ones)

Fact is, you see this with gov't. & law enforcement, creating new "little laws & ordnances", thus, creating more criminals (or, potential ones) - same thing here in the psychology/psychiatry industry as well!

APK

P.S.=> Everyone's looking to scam/work an angle, or, haven't we ALL seen this from our own "industries" here in the U.S.A. the past decade or so now? I was told this is how it was done in various "tyrannical despotic empires" since time immemorial by my history profs in collegiate academia (Jesuits), & it hasn't changed - they also told us, "whenever you see new little laws passing, ask yourselves 'who stands to profit by it' & QUESTION EVERYTHING" &, imo @ least? They were spot-on correct! apk

Everything is a disorder

[servognome]

We must get past the idea that we are controlled by some magical "soul," and realize that all our activities are the result of electro-chemical reactions.
Mental illness or disorders are misnomers. It should really be classified as desireable and undesirable actions. We shouldn't excuse undesirable actions, and look at ways to modify behavior with chemicals, training, or surgical methods

Re:Everything is a disorder

[Secret Rabbit]

Ok, so using a popular blogger in the mad'o'sphere as an example, what should she do about not being able to wash herself because she's so depressed. Sometimes being that way for significant lengths of time.

What you don't seem to realise, is that sometimes those electro-chemical reactions can get wacky to the point of some seriously fucked up shit. Things that not only can significantly interrupt life, but can actually be life threatening.

Having a mental illness isn't an excuse for undesirable behaviour, it's a reason. Does that mean one doesn't have to take responsibility? Fuck no! There is a difference between a reason for the actions and not having to take responsibility for them you know.

Good call.

[John Guilt]

There's a big difference between work and having a job; the first is necessary to get things done, the second I can only understand, and that not viscerally, as some sort of S&M game other people are into.

Re:Good call.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I thought I had already responded to this. Yes, and this is one of the big differences between NTs and autistics like you and I. For us, the immediate gratification of the work is reward enough. Now if only one could live and raise a family on gratification......

Just another excuse to drug people for profit

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just another excuse to drug people with drugs that fuck people up more than they thought they were. All for a profit, of course.

I hope he's nurtured sanely

[John Guilt]

I hope his parents, relatives, and their friends: Encourage his socialisation, but don't force it. Don't force his acceleration at school, but encourage it. Don't let him believe other people will be fine with his not being normal, because most of them won't (and Asperger's people tend to loathe lies), but don't try to make him normal, either. (Yes, they messed up with me, and I am bitter about it....) (Auto-diagnosed 1994, confirmed by professionals 1996, 1999, 2003.....)

I'm not bitter about this

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm happy for them. I feel that every person who has a problem should be able to get it dealt with without the condemnation of others. After all, those with problems should do all that can be done to get rid of those problems.

As for me, I'm a sufferer of Compulsive Optimism and Joy Syndrome (COJS). I was diagnosed with this 4 years ago because people kept telling me I was "too happy," "didn't get depressed," and "was far too easy going." Now, I understood all that but I was happy either way. I had a good life and I was content.

But my friends and family got me to see a psychiatrist and, in the last 4 years, I realized that what I had was a serious problem. I've been working hard at being a far more cynical, bitter, and depressed individual. I want to break free of my overly happy and content self that was ill and instead become a healthy, neurotic, and pessimistic individual. I really feel I can make it.

(Oh darn, looks like I lapsed back into my old frame of mind. Better take my pills.)

Best summary in years

[fabs64]

samzenpus, you owe me a coffee and a new keyboard

My Ex Wife

[Anonymous Coward]

Several years ago, my ex wife was close to getting her second set of Computer Science/Music degrees (first time in the early '70's), and she became extremely bitter, and felt the world has treated her unfairly, and she was often angry for no reason, and vehemently jealous of anyone "with money", and every weekday started verbally trashing me as soon as she walked in the door after work, it was a nightmare.

I finally had to divorce her, and she went even further into her depression/self destructiveness, and eventually after losing her housing and fiends she was diagnosed with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), and got some kind of treatment, and then she tried several times to reenter my life, but I refused all contact, she was poison.

Although, I do hope that she was able to find a doctor savvy enough to help her, she sure seemed tortured.

Re:Wealthy parents syndrome

[Anonymous Coward]

"His parents paid his rent, paid for his Volkswagen camper... Man, I'd BEG for that disease. No diagnosis required, and the BENEFITS."
Umm, this sounds really petty of you. I can't tell if you're trying to be ironic, or alternating jealousy with sarcasm or whatever, but just because you're parent(s) don't give a shit about you doesn't give you the right to judge.
I'm an orphan myself, but if some guy gets stuff from his parents, I say good for him. If he gets my tax dollars for his illness, its an entirely different matter...

Next up...

[FatdogHaiku]

After bitterness, the next problems redefined will be sourness (just not liking anyone) and saltiness (liking everyone enough to want to sleep with them... and telling them).

Yes!

[Ikcor]

Guilty as charged! Now where can I get my handicapped parking placard?

Many have reasons to be bitter

[Ezrymyrh]

Many people have reasons to be bitter in the course of normal life it is a fact of living, It helps to define us as a culture to have adversity and loss that at times can be painful, and at times very personal. I thing the defining difference that exist is the support of the people that have have experienced this and had the help of others "not feeling like your alone" My personal experience with this is as follows. I was diagnosed with a serious degenerate muscle/neural disease young and was facing a shortened life span there is no cure just pain management and i was on very high doses of prednisone, I lost a friend in a drunk driving accident "he was the drunk" My brother hates me to this day for stopping him from going with him that night. I was a sickly 120lbs 6'1 got my ass kicked a lot for this,the boys father, a Vietnam vet who when he saw me the day of the funeral told me if i went he would kill me, shoot me dead. School also became a nightmare i lived every day, i could not talk to anyone, i was a villain for being happy my brother did not die that night, but sad anyone did die that night. I got distant from people and bitter. My last job i really needed for the money, ya know bills, I lied about my medical history to get it, i lost the girl of my dreams due to my bad mood swings who would have thought? Then my job, I was a model employee never called in never late,always did overtime had no problem with any others but was told i was fired and told to F*ck off. Soon after i became too ill to work anymore. Lost my car my home. For years i was under the believe he found out i had lied to get the job, and i understood. And then one day a friend of my ex girlfriend told me that my ex GF had been sleeping with the bosses son,yes shortly after finding out i was working there she did this for revenge i suppose. I was very bitter and became suicidal for a long time... I moved over a 1000 miles away severed all contact with anyone connected with my past and got married to a very kind wonderful person, have had some major drawbacks in my medical condition since my move but my life is still better then it ever was...I owe it all to the friends my wife and our wonderful children and my new life i have made here. Now at 40 year old i am a proud new grampa!

What's excessive?

[Atrox666]

I figure I'm just bitter enough to tell you all to go fuck yourselves.
If I was any less bitter people would get left out.
We couldn't have that now could we?

As in Old Soviet Russia? And elsewhere?

[hughbar]

They did a lot of creative work in the area that people who had some kind of objection to the system or harboured injustice were mad and should be locked up.

I live in a pretty poor part of London and I watch our borough council (Tower Hamlets, for Slashdot Brits) mess people about, break promises and betray people (and then spin about how great they are) on a daily basis. These are people, often, who are not very articulate (poor english too, sometimes) and may not have a great many mental tools for dealing with this (the necessary tools would probably be the patience of a saint, anyway).

So, this bitterness is quite normal, understandable and (for me) not a mental illness. I fear that what I describe goes on elsewhere too.

Re:As in Old Soviet Russia? And elsewhere?

[beth_tk]

I agree. Sometimes bitterness is the only correct response to an unfair system. If people feel bitter enough to motivate themselves into fighting back and improving things that's healthy and good. It certainly shouldn't get them patronised, labelled as 'ill', and fed little pills to make them dopey and happy enough to accept all the crap.

Bitter ? Just add sugar

[Lexor]

No wonder the Kool-Aid Man is so pissed off, looks like someone forgot to add the cup of sugar.

Poppy-Cock

[HW_Hack]

What a crock of shit. Some people are just negative in their world view - often for some very petty and silly reasons.

I have a sister-in-law who is a total downer and a petty person. She cannot let go of anything - shes still carrying baggage from when she was 7yrs old and her brother was picking on her.

I believe in the statement attributed to Abe Lincoln: Most people are as happy as they decide to be.

Re:Poppy-Cock

[Secret Rabbit]

The key word being most. What about the others? In my opinion, therapy, *possibly* meds *temporarily*. But, dealing with shit is more about life than chemical imbalances. A crutch might be fine for a little bit, but not really a solution in and of itself.

Re:Poppy-Cock

[Magada]

You're still carrying baggage from when you were seven too. Your baggage just happens to be the good kind. So?

Slashdotters will qualify

[Anonymous Courageous]

Well then, the Linux loving Slashdot crowd straightaway qualifies for this categorization. They're quite bitter about Windows, y'know!

Embittement disorder

[nomad-9]

If a shrink diagnoses you with Embittement Disorder, punch him in the nose and refuse to pay his consultation bill. There's the chance that you'll be cured instantly, by Bitterness Transfer.

Happyness To Be Classified As a Mental Illness

[snlr]

Some psychiatrists are trying to get excessive happyness identified as a mental illness named post-traumatic happyness disorder. Of course this has some people who live perfect little lives, but never get what they want, be happy about the new classification. The so called "disorder" is modeled after post-traumatic stress disorder because it too is a response to a trauma that endures. "They feel the world. It's one step more complex than death. They're happy plus helpless."

Dammit

[elronxenu]

Now they tell us.

What's in a Name?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought they already had a word for this: Republican.

and a great way to stifle dissent

[waterbear]

Just think of the 'advantages' of having bitterness classified as a mental illness/disorder:

All those awkward folk who get themselves wronged and deprived of justice -- they can be reclassified as mentally ill, and maybe compulsorily treated with some happy pill, maybe locked up. And finally, they'll come to realize that there is justice after all, and they'll get to love Big Brother .....

-wb- :(

Being human

[Anonymous Coward]

There used to be a time when if you were wronged you could simply kill the perpetrator(s) and do the time / hang / whatever. But nowadays you can't even get access to the real bad guys anymore. You don't know their names, let alone get near to them. Of course theoretically the people who shield them are equally guilty, but killing a few of them isn't going to matter, nothing would change.
People want to fight (not necessarily litterally) for a good cause. It's in our nature, it's pretty much what it means to be human for a lot of people. But if you devote enough of your life to others for it to matter, you'll screw up your own life. So what do people do all day? Well, most people sit at a desk all day achieving absolutely nothing. Shoving some numbers representing pennies around in a spreadsheet, while the director can't figure out how to spend his next billion. Coding up some boring routine in a program that's going to be replaced within ten years by an open source alternative that in fact already exists. Having to write up reports on the consequences of municipal policy decisions, when the council has already stated it will press ahead, reports be damned. Lifes wasted. I guess rulers like that - wasted lifes are predictable. You can capture them in numbers, plot them in charts and lay the tracks for them. And when something happens to someone personal, even then they're powerless, not because of the consequences, or because of power, but simply because the enemy is hidden, or in some cases because there's nothing there to fight.
This is what life is like in modern society. People can't have personal fights anymore, and usually can't do much for progress. But people are people. They have empathy and brains that yearn for good causes. And daily we're bombarded with the harsh realities of what the planet's like. Terrible illnesses and afflictions mowing people down by the millions, often preventable and only continuing because of evil people's utterances and doings. People subjugating their brothers and sisters, in ways too violent, horrible and sick to contemplate, because of fairy tales in dusty books. A tiny fraction of the planet massing most of the wealth, using it mainly to gather yet more, draining the planet, while people are starving or die slow, gruesomely painful deaths because they can't pay for their medicine.
Some people take this in good humour. Some snap. The rest are, at least to some extent, bitter. The only difference between most people I've seen is how they deal with it. I try to escape in literature (including film and anime, as well as the classics) and coding; life is simpler when you're preoccupied with something. Other people I've met have other ways of dealing with it. Should we all take pills to be happy? Frankly, if someone were to offer me such a pill, I would draw my knife and stab him right then and there. I'm still human - bitter, but proud.

Oh great...

[PhotoGuy]

Can they do that? Add to my list of mental illnesses after the fact???

Treatment for bitterness

[dugeen]

Bitterness is now easily treatable by internet therapy. Sufferers are encouraged to vent their frustration by posting mentalist rants on comments boards. It works wonders I assure you.

Nice bashing

[bokske]

Your ignorance on this matter is astounding and is only dwarfed by the size of the universe.

Awesome !
I'm gonna use that quote in my next flamewar.

Prozak, anyone?

[Drakkenmensch]

From the same people who tried to reclassify shyness as a mental illness so they could shove more antidepressants in us! Pretty soon, every emotion imaginable will be classified as a disease, and of course there's gonna be a pill for that. Expect Grammaton Priests at your door any moment now.

Teenager

[howe.chris]

I have a synonym for pted. It is called being a teenager.

Cleveland

[MamboKing]

Well, at least now all of us Cleveland sports fans can get insurance to pay for our psychiatry sessions. I wonder if there is a 'Wait Till Next Year" syndrome also?

Disorders??? Do not exist.

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing you should take away from this news is that none of the "disorders" of the DSM actually exist. They are names for observed behaviors. They are decided by vote. No science is involved. None of the doctors and psychiatrists know what causes them.

PTSD is the only disorder with a suspected cause. But there is no evidence that the substance of a flash back or PTSD event is the cause of that event.

When Army Engineers building the ALCAN highway inside the US and Canada in 1942 began to have mental breaks no one connected it to "battle fatigue" or "shell shock." But it was the same mental break.

How do I know that? I have investigated a simple problem of human physiology for the last six years.

The living arrangements the Army uses allow Subliminal Distraction exposure. SD is capable of a variety of mental outcomes.

Symptoms of SD exposure are fear, paranoia, panic attacks, depression and thoughts of suicide.

Uncontrollable and unremitting unhappiness is a possible outcome of SD exposure. Remember the Virginia Tech shooter. Interviews of roommates revealed he had behaviors to allow Subliminal Distraction exposure. His video rant showed he had emotional problems with bitterness. Acting on it he killed thirty two people

VisionAndPsychosis.Net is my Internet scratch pad. You can perform a psychology demonstration that allows you to witness something disappear while you observe it in peripheral vision.

Rodney Dangerfield, mental patient

[stuntpope]

So now I'm mentally ill? And here I thought I don't get any respect, now I get less!

stick it Mr. Linden

[Anonymous Coward]

Invite people to Bitterness is not a mental disease. eff OFF Dr. Michael Linden

Down with that sort of thing!

http://www.facebook.com/groups/edit.php?members&new&saved&gid=90185421735#/group.php?gid=90185421735

come and join ze Group on FB (but quick before ze Germans get there!)

Fix

[Povno]

"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 culminate on slashdot."

- There, fixed that.

So, what do we classify them as?

[whitroth]

I mean, is there a diagnosis for wanting to be a psychiatrist? There *is* the old joke is that the folks going into psychiatry are all crazy in the first place, and figure if they can cure others, they'll be able to cure themselves.

It also doesn't address the perfectly *reasonable* reaction to real-world situations that one has no control over; continuing on down this path literally leads to Brave New World, drugs to sleep, drugs to wake up, drugs to....

I can also comment as to my opinion of *most* psychiatrists: consider One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, or, to be downright brutal, Joe Haldeman's 1968.

Finally, I can go back to what I've read about Freud, with his "Civilization and Its Discontents", which I gather is basically "this is the way it is, and stiff upper lip and all that, and anything else, we'll have to treat so you can stiff upper lip it".

I've always considered that a failure of nerve, since it didn't go to the next step of "let's change civilization to be more human-centric".

        mark

Facebook Group created ....

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=90185421735&ref=nf

It's not me, it's you

[MrKaos]

Unfortunately I can relate to this article, fortunately for me I had friends close enough to me to help me.

I think it's real because I was on the other side of this fence three years ago, getting what I want and so sharing what I had, never knowing that one day I would be made to fell sorry for that. From the experience, I have been lessened by it. After I suffered a serious accident, two of my closest friends hurt me in ways I am still learning to deal. My Doctor diagnosed me with mild depression as a result of my experiences.

Without going into the details, enough of my other friends recognised the sacrifices I had made to help them and counseled me, knowing I was hurt. I recognised I felt bitter and actually still do, affecting the last three years of my life costing me employment opportunities, making me question my sense of self-worth. How many nights awake have I spent? I can't say or that I am clear of this stage of my life but I think that labeling this 'Embrittlement syndrome' is the wrong way to think of something that is actually symptomatic of what I tend to think of as a victim of Selfish Cunt Syndrome (S.C.S).

Everybody here knows these types of people, you are probably friends with one. The thing is it's important to recognise a relationship with a selfish cunt in any setting, work, friends and family and steer a wide berth around them or slowly isolate them out of your life. These people will make you bitter. Surviving S.C.S will cost you years of sleep, at work you will find it hard to focus because you will not be able to get the thoughts of how angry you are out of your head. It will define the terms of any new relationships and will also ruin those new relationships, because inadvertently you will take the anger out on the people around you.

Despite the fact that I still, almost daily, have these angry thought's in my head, my life has slowly started to turn around. What you don't realise is that those type of people sap a lot of energy from your own life. Time, money and more importantly time you should be spending with other people.

I am telling you this because the geek and nerd persona are particularly vulnerable to the people who suffer from S.C.S.

I wasn't wary and have been vulnerable because there is nothing to prepare you. This doesn't mean that all my friends were like that but S.C.S sufferers taint your other relationships with other people. You are angry and you don't know why. They humiliate you and you don't know why. They take advantage of you and you don't know why. You make the effort, they don't and you don't know why. They take and take and take and never give back and you don't *understand* why. It's emotionally draining. Becoming bitter is a long victimisation process that sufferers of S.C.S inflict on people long before the final act of betrayal. It's was hard and painful lesson to learn that I was stupid and trusting enough to let those people into my life. Don't fall for it like many creative types do.

To survive S.C.S you will eventually have to confront them in a constructive manner. What I mean by that is you will have to be very considered in communicating your feeling in a way that does not demean *you*. They will avoid you and try desperately to avoid encountering you because they don't want to experience the pain they have inflicted. At the same time the potential for self destruction is almost overwhelming because the anger can consume you to destroy your reputation or worse. Don't do it.

For victims of S.C.S (and that's what you become) the perfect method of achieving this is a return receipt email or old fashioned registered mail. Registered Snail Mail is actually superior because the S.C.S sufferer cannot easily duplicate your words and use them against you to futher humiliate you. It's that potential for humiliation you must be wary of, so rather than trying to hurt the person back, disarming honesty and how you feel about things will help *you*. However getting the message to them is like na

Oh please....

[hesaigo999ca]

I am embittered everyday, I may be suffering from this new ailment, or I could be like the rest of the global population and temporarily feel like this until, I pick myself back up again, and start again on something different.
The more you invest into something and it fails, the more bitter you will be because of it, but it is how you deal with that that makes you who you are, if you stand back and think f*cker...just took my spot...i should shoot him...welcome to the club, bu then you consider other views to the situation, like maybe when he comes out with a cane, you think..."its ok that he took that spot i was waiting for, he has trouble walking..." etc....

You are what you think....(as well as what you eat).
I think greatness everyday, for myself, for people around me, for humankind in general....but don't rob me of my
experience by labeling as a bad thing, because without it I would be lame in dealing with other situations.
This is what ambition starts from.... next time I wont get stuck, or next time I will get that shot....

Positive reinforcement is only present with an opposite catalyst!

This is good news...

[motherpusbucket]

Me and Skeeter, the tiny pink manatee that lives in my ear and tells me to do things, are excited about this. Skeeter has been feeling a little bitter about how his life turned out lately.

Its all about the money

[ittybad]

Here is my understanding: The psychiatrist can only get paid by the insurance company if they are actually treating SOMETHING. So, for something to be "treatable," the individual needs to be diagnosed with something wrong. This cycle has led to the creation of many, many "conditions" requiring treatment. One that comes to mind is developmental math disorder, whereby one is in need of medication and/or treatment in order to learn math.

A familiar tale

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a friend psychiatrist which reminds me of your story. Whenever she talks to people, she will bring up all the negative things about some people in her work, what her boss, coworkers, etc. have said and done to her. She will tell how they "gang up" on her, and how they will take revenge for her telling the "truth" how the place is run / how they should do things. At any place she will rebel against any "unfair/wrong" practices, and make alot of noise - involving as many people as possible, against maybe 1-2 people she don't approve of. Telling stories about the people and how bad they are, Thus she will try to get sympathy for her "story", while the listener really have no clue what's really going on. But on the surface, it seems she is right that there are some truly cruel people at her work. We tend to agree with whoever is nearest our face at any given time.. unthinkingly..

Of course, this is how she portrays it, but if you try to point it out, she will deny that of course. If you try to point out that maybe the boss have some positive points also, she will absolutely try to convince you the guy's the Beast and find more and more negative stories about him, while still denying being too negative about ANYTHING.. She's blameless, and that's her compulsion.. To shift all blame to some external enemy. If you try to point out ANYTHING to her, she will blame/attack you for lying about her, the situation, or anything, other than try to look at herself and her attitudes and behaviours - thus no progress can really be made by criticism.

That they gang up on her, is a recurring self-fulfilled prophecy. I don't think it needs explaining, it should be deducable from the above description.

I figured out one day we were supposed to meet. Because I needed to pack for a trip, I didn't check my phone. Turns out she was late, and in a very strange mood: like soo furious and vindictive, and wanting to blame me for being so cruel to have forgotten her or something. I tell you, the most infuriating moods, are much more contagious than we think!

"Why did you disregard my phone call??" She demanded in an attitude full of bitterness and BLAMING attitude, while being SO sure she is RIGHT about how I must have seen her calls and decided to ignore her or something (mind you, I arrived on time - while she was late! I had just been too busy packing for a day..) I immediately disapproved of her attitude about it, just because of the tone and the strange / mad tone of her voice, so didn't say sorry, but said I had been too busy preparing for a trip. This didn't please her, and she was absolutely determined I was a culprit, and spent the next 20 minutes trying to convince me I was evil-doer of some sort.
(Tip: Best thing is always to just say SORRY, and never go into details or explain too much - but be precise WHY IT HAPPENED using as few words as possible and that YOU ARE SORRY (even if you aren't!). Such person NEEDS you to get the blame (whatever that is), and anything you try to defend, will just heat up the argument.. _Anything_ you say or try to explain away, will just continue the person's downwards spiral, until you are ALSO an entangled mess..At least I am not strong enough to withstand the emotional onslaught.. and anyway, the argument will never end until it has exploded)

You see, such vehement bitterness, other people will not tolerate - while the person themself will not be aware of their own bitterness! If someone blames you, or blames anyone very very harshly, even just by the tone of the voice, it will not be swallowed down easily, and we react to it all too quickly. This is normal human behaviour and called "an argument". However, when prompted by abnormal bitterness like described above, it turns into an abnormal argument where both parties see themselves as victims.

This is because the real perpetrators (you and her, and I mean this in a _helping_ way mind you, not blaming - but in the way that what you can take responsibility for - gives you strength and power - so ultimately Ever

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the real deal.

IF bitterness is classified as a mental illness AND gun owners are bitter about the prospect of getting their guns confiscated
THEN
        the government, under the guise of banning weapons owned by the mentally disturbed, takes their guns away.

Anonymous Coward.

[Anonymous Coward]

Take a trip to Stockport. Locate nearest Manchester City fan (probably wearing a Barca shirt this week).
And there you have living breathing proof of post-traumatic embitterment disorder.

I hate to admit this...

[Ehwaz003]

But it sounds very familiar for me.

Let me tell you why: I've been bullied for more then 12 years, and it resulted in a behavior that sometimes can be a little bit... hard for others to understand. Most people I meet don't have a clue what is going on, but I feel almost always paranoid that whatever I tell them is going to be used against me some time later on.

The biggest problem I have with this is that I realize what I'm doing... but I can't change it. It's not only bitterness, it's also hate, it's also disappointment.

Yes, I'm in treatment, because I started to realize that this was not only making it a very tough time for others... it's also a daily battle against myself.

The main thing that aches the most is that I have to pay lots of money for this treatment. While those who originally caused it just had their fun with me. And live happily every after. I feel the urge to take revenge... sometimes.
I feel that it's quite unfair. It costs me >$300 a month for treatments while those bullies just walk around now without probably having a clue of what they did.

Oh yes, I did meet a couple of them later on. But none of them ever said how wrong they were. I'm pretty sure that if they would have the chance, they would do it all over again.

I want this trouble to end.
I thought about killing them, but that's not a solution. But quite frankly, I don't see any other way. It's revenge I want to take and it's something I'm pretty sure of that is legitimate.
Well, it is to me. Restoring balance...

I see people around me and talk with people who had minor problems in comparison with what I had, but I fail to see what the big deal is.
One person told me that she almost killed herself, but didn't do it and got better over time.
She told me the story to offer me a perspective... that I'm not the only one with trouble.
I didn't tell her that I tried twice and that I've done lots of other things, because she clearly thought that her problem, which she overcame was much more important and better then mine.

Lots of people are like this...
It's called "detraumatising": you give a much worse example to illustrate to the person that his/her problem is not a big deal, just a minor nuisance. The effect is pretty predictable: the person who gets to hear the story feels misunderstood and quits.

I didn't tell that person what I really thing about her "suicide-confession", but I'm willing to.

Now I'm going to stop typing... my hands are shaking just writing about it.

Let me make it clear to you one more time: I would like nothing more then these feelings and this state to STOP, the sooner the better!!!!
It's NO fun.

Glad I see my therapist soon...