Diseases Du Jour
If you ever do something stupid, blame it on a disease.
That's what everyone's doing now, especially when it comes to academic achievement. Don't mind the hyperactive people in your class, because they all have ADHD. And the neat freak of the class? Just another textbook case of OCD. And we can't possibly fault the innumerable people who suffer from depression, or the moody bipolar crowd either. Everywhere there are diseases up for grabs––just pick the one that suits your particular exonerative need.
I don't mean to be insensitive towards people who genuinely suffer from the above conditions, which is why I'm so annoyed at people who pretend to have OCD just because they express preferences, or hide behind what they think is ADHD just because they're easily excited. I'm sure you've encountered such people: they do something absolutely ridiculous, and then brush it off with a "Don't mind me, I'm ADD" or whatever their disorder du jour is. Most, if not all of the people I'm talking about have never had a doctor diagnose them with any such deficiency. So what I'm saying is, odds are that few of the gothic/emo people at your school actually suffer from clinical depression. Like most of humanity, they just suffer from perpetual idiocy.
And one last consideration: as far as I know, people have disorders. I have never known a person who was actually the disorder per se. It makes no sense to say "I'm OCD" unless you happen to be the physical embodiment of serotonin. The next time you find someone referring to themself as a disorder, flick them on the nose as hard as you can. I'm serious.
December 10th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
GO PHIL!!!!! I love how you can critisize (I can't spell well, sorry) all the modern things in the word, including grammer. Tim Zornes and arn't people with ADD OR ADHD, we're just easily amused, we HAVE nice attention spans, propably longer than a third of my class.
December 13th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
there's one disease you forgot. ready? Here it is;
Obesity. That's right fatness is a disease. so it's not the fat man's fault for being fat, he just caught a disease. It's also contagious, so stay away from the obese, or you might get it too.
No, seriously, that's what people say.
December 14th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
I don't know, I've been around fat people a lot and somehow I'm still a human toothpick.
I'm pretty sure that by "disease," those people are referring to a mental condition, because there is substantial research that shows that over-eating can be a neurological disorder that can be cured. The obesity/weight per se isn't a contagious condition; they got that way perhaps because of the way their genes were put together.