don’t make me angry. you wouldn’t like me when i’m… hey, is that prozac?

Let’s say, purely for argument’s sake, that you are sitting in your den watching your favorite college football team play a hated rival and that you lose in the very last second of the game. Shortly thereafter you find you’ve put your fist through the ceiling. Which of the following two choices best explains this behavior:

1. You are an idiot.
2. You are, through no personal moral failing of your own whatsoever, mentally ill and in need of expensive psychotherapy and a variety of costly medications many of which are still on patent.

If you chose “2” you just might have a career in advanced psychiatric research.

It’s called, “Intermittent Explosive Disorder” (IED) and is being used to explain various forms of anger such as “Road Rage.”  Also, Howard Dean. The only known treatment is to hand over large bags of cash to psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies.

A recent study authored by Ronald Kessler, a health care policy professor at Harvard Medical School, found that as many as 16 million people suffer from IED, and of these, only 29% ever receive treatment. This suggests that there is a potentially lucrative stream of revenue just waiting to be snapped up by those professionals wishing to exploit this currently untapped market. Oh, and there is the potential to bring desperate relief to millions suffering from this horrible disease. Even if they didn’t know they were desperate, needed relief, or had a disease.

Professor Kessler said he was "blown away by how many people meet criteria" for IED and that it was "mind-boggling" that this hadn’t been discovered sooner.

But then, it must be noted that Professor Kessler was also the author of the seminal study in 1994 that happened to find that as many as half of all Americans have exhibited some form of mental illness. (In other words, if you are sane, there’s a really good chance your spouse is bonkers. But then, you already knew that.)

Naturally, there are pros and cons to the psychiatric profession’s tireless efforts to constantly expand the number of people who are considered mentally ill:

PRO: Making everyone mentally ill removes any stigma associated with the disease.
CON:  The expression, “What, are you crazy?” becomes impossibly rhetorical.

There is also the possibility that by classifying so many people as being mentally ill for what are mostly just common everyday behaviors might trivialize those who suffer from serious mental illnesses, the ones who are a danger to themselves and others, suffering from blackouts and whose behavior can result in injury and property damage. It is important that we ensure that these people always receive the proper attention and care they require.

And by “proper attention and care” we mean “keep electing to Congress.”

J.