I’m on deadline again, so I thought I’d just scoop a couple of the larger clumps of Wingnut Opinion, then spray Febreze around the place and worry about changing the litter tomorrow…
First stop: Townhall, where prostitute phalange fellator Dick Morris asks: Are the Dems Suicidal?
If the Democrats obey Obama’s commands and pass health-care reform legislation by the August recess, they will be committing partisan suicide, akin to lemmings going over the cliff en masse…It smacks of the same kind of overreaching as doomed FDR’s second term in 1937 after his landslide victory in 1936.
Heed Dick’s words, Obama, for it was surely FDR’s excess of ambition which ensured Wendell Willkie’s election as the 33rd President of the United States.
Next, Dr. Professor Mike Adams, Ph.D offers a Master Class in Irony with this week’s column, You Aren’t Bipolar, You’re Just a Jerk!
It’s getting old, isn’t it? Everyone these days is bipolar or has some other chic mental disorder that he feels excuses his self-centered conduct.
Whereas Dr. Professor Mike can act like an insufferable twat and never offer any excuse whatsoever, somehow remaining convinced that he enjoys a moral and spiritual advantage over everyone he meets. Whether these delusions represent a form of mental illness I am not, of course, competent to say, because I don’t have a Ph.D in criminology.
Having a mental disorder used to be a source of embarrassment.
We didn’t need anti-depressants, we had shame. And we liked it that way!
But, now, it’s often a request for special treatment, which, when granted, fuels self-centered conduct. That’s why a pastor friend of mine now hears the claim “But, I’m bipolar!” in approximately 80 percent of his marital counseling sessions. This means that approximately 40 percent of the people he counsels are claiming to be “bipolar.”
Assuming his “pastor friend” is Doug Giles, I believe I can shed some light on this improbable statistic. After listening to ten minutes of Giles’ increasingly high-pitched exhortations to “sack up for your savior!” and “bitch-slap your inner Barney Frank!” and “I’m a goddamn shark master!” and “Have you seen my painting of Jesus’s penis? I made the pubes extra bushy ’cause I’m into that…” you naturally begin to suspect you’ve gone crazy.
Is there something in the water that is causing a massive outbreak in manic-depression and other mental disorders?
Nope, just some hormone-mimicking chemicals that cause cancer and sterility.
Just about everyone who really suffers from some form of depression (manic or otherwise) has something in common: He is engaged in self-centered conduct, which either a) actually caused the disorder (real or perceived), or b) greatly exacerbates the disorder (real or perceived).
Professor Dr. Mike is an evangelical Christian and a non-medical doctor, so I believe what he’s actually saying here is that depression does not have a psychological or physical origin, but is simply the result of lingering guilt over unexpiated sin. This clinical insight means that the mentally ill are not entitled to receive the alms and pity that Christ commanded his followers to offer the sick, and it also allows Dr. Mike to hate both the sin and the sinner, since the latter is not only staining his immortal soul, but inconveniencing an Associate Professor at a minor university.
People who suffer from, or claim to suffer from, some form of depression usually respond in one of two ways:
1) They seek psychological counseling, which focuses largely on “talk therapy.” During these talk therapy sessions the patient pays a doctor to listen to him talk at length about himself and his problems. Since this is just another exercise in self-absorption, it rarely works.
As Dr. Mike (who isn’t really a doctor, but apparently likes to play one on the internet) tells his imaginary patients, the “talking cure” went out with Freud and frigidity, so forget what sources like the National Institute of Mental Health says about the effectiveness of psychotherapies, alone or in conjunction with medication. After all, Dr. Mike has a Master’s in Psychology, and “turned down a chance to pursue a PhD in psychology from the University of Georgia, opting instead to remain at Mississippi State to study Sociology/Criminology. This decision was made entirely on the basis of his reluctance to quit his night job as member of a musical duo. Playing music in bars and at fraternity parties and weddings financed his education. Mike Adams also played for free beer.”
2) They seek psychiatric care, which usually results in a drug prescription. Paying someone to give you mood altering drugs, rather than addressing your behavior, involves a degree of self-absorption that simply cannot be ignored. But it usually is ignored. And that’s why the drugs usually don’t do the trick. In fact, they often lead people to suicide.
Depressed? Ask your doctor if doing jack-shit is right for you.
Behind the two generally misguided approaches to curing depression is the common fallacy that our emotions are usually the causes, not the effects, of our behavior. But, in reality, it is our behavior that usually shapes our attitudes and our emotions.
Yes, it makes no sense that emotions would motivate behavior, when the science of Sociology/Criminology has proven that we only experience emotions as the result of our actions. For example, nobody is going to listen to some smarmy douchebag belittle the problems of people struggling with mental illness, get angry, and then punch him. It’s much more likely that someone would punch another person suddenly, out of the blue, then get angry at them.
If you don’t believe what I’m saying I want you to try a little exercise the next time you wake up in a bad mood. All it involves is simply forcing yourself to smile and exchange simple pleasantries with every stranger you see during the morning hours. That simple act of saying something nice and seeing a return smile will kill any bad mood in less than half a day. It has a success rate of about 100 percent.
Bad mood > clinical depression. So there you go — Dr. Mike can diagnosis your character flaws (what those witch doctors at the NIMH call “depression”), and in a fraction of the time he can achieve the exact same results as medication or years of psychotherapy: an urge to commit suicide.