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.
I'd be bitter too if I had four fingers and no torso.
So when is Cynicism getting added to an ever expanding list of mental disorders that one more pill can set right?
You mad
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...
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.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I have fought for the classification of bitterness into the mental illnesses several decades ago but people laughed at me. Still bitter about it.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
These people who seem to need to classify every single possible emotional state as an illness have some serious mental issues.
So all developers are ipso facto mentally ill? It would explain quite a lot.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
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.
"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?
.
Trolling is a art,
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.
You sound bitter...
...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.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
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.
Todos mis movimientos están friamente calculados
I submit "Compulsive Classification" as a mental disorder, but everybody thinks I'm paranoid. I have proof.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Sounds better than chemically-induced passivity, which is what these doctors seem to be advocating.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
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)
My blog
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.
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.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
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?
the world is full of bastards and now I'M the mentally ill one
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
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.
Don't give Them ideas, They are already quite certain that They have the power to quarantine you without due process.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
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!"
This could be good for married men all over America. Benefits and compensation :)
*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.
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.
I am not a crackpot.
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 ...
"Cats like plain crisps"
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.
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.
I am not a crackpot.
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.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
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.
Who is John Cabal?
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- :(
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.
"The more corrupt a society, the more numerous are its laws." -Tacticus